Protagen AG Joins RA-Map Consortium Seeking Predictors of RA Remission

Issue: March 2016

Protagen AG has announced in a press release that it has joined the RA-MAP Consortium, a collaborative of 10 academic partners in the United Kingdom and 10 industry partners, to support the identification of key predictors of clinical response to remission in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

An additional goal of the collaborative group is to identify individuals at risk for the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

“We are delighted that Protagen joins our RA-MAP consortium, contributing their proprietary SeroTag platform to our search for biomarkers in RA,” John Isaacs, PhD, FRCP, director of the Institute of Cellular Medicine and professor of clinical rheumatology at Newcastle University, who leads the consortium, said in the release. “In RA, there is a major need to identify the characteristics of those individuals most likely to achieve clinical remission so that both new and existing therapies can be targeted to the right patient populations.”

“Our innovative diagnostic technology for the first time allows the systematic discovery of biomarkers predicting remission and the response to treatments in RA,” Stefan Müllner, Protagen chief executive officer, said in the release. “As such it enables new approaches to successful drug development and support patients, rheumatologists, payers and the pharma industry in our combined effort to improve patient management by rationalizing treatment decision especially early during disease course. This is exactly what RA-MAP is aiming for and we feel privileged to be part of the consortium and support these efforts.”

Reference:

http://protagen.com