Janssen partners with NIMH, Harvard, Rutgers, Yale for schizophrenia research

In an effort to further scientific knowledge of schizophrenia, Johnson and Johnson recently announced Janssen Research and Development, LLC, is partnering with a number of research organizations to launch the Open Translational Science in Schizophrenia project.

The NIMH, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Rutgers University and Yale University School of Medicine will collaborate with Janssen on the Open Translational Science in Schizophrenia (OPTICS) project, which aims to establish a new forum for collaborative analysis of clinical trial data from Janssen and the NIMH about schizophrenia.

“Sharing clinical trial data advances the science that is the foundation of medical care. Over the past year, Johnson and Johnson has worked with the Yale School of Medicine Open Data Access Project to provide participant-level data from our pharmaceutical and medical device clinical trials to more than a dozen qualified researchers,” Joanne Waldstreicher, MD, chief medical officer of Johnson and Johnson, said in a press release.

Using clinical trial data from Janssen, made available via the Yale School of Medicine Open Data Access Project, and data on schizophrenia from the NIMH, the OPTICS project aims to encourage researcher collaboration.

All data analyses proposed for OPTICS must meet at least one of the following defined project goals:

Advance efficacy and safety of medicines for schizophrenia;
Increase understanding of schizophrenia, including disease history, subtypes and causes; and
Contribute to the development of analytic and design methods for disparate data types, including new statistical methods and research designs.

“As a society, we have a responsibility to further advance care for people with mental illness. Schizophrenia can be a devastating illness and has a significant impact on individuals living with the disease, as well as their families. OPTICS will foster open-science collaborations and lead to new, fundamental insights about schizophrenia so that we can improve therapies and treatments, and ultimately find a cure,” Husseini K. Manji, MD, global head of the neuroscience and therapeutic area at Janssen Research and Development, LLC, said in the release.

For more information:

Visit https://www.sites.google.com/site/opticsschizophrenia.