Key result
Muscular Dystrophy Association meeting convenes stakeholders to discuss accelerating muscle disease drug development.
This stakeholders' meeting established a collaborative foundation among regulatory, academic, and industry partners to accelerate translational research and drug development for muscular dystrophy.
Promotes cross-sector collaboration to expedite muscle disease therapies; leaves open validation of proposed development strategies in trials.
Current treatment benefits for patients with muscle disease are limited, but progress in legislative and scientific initiatives have set the stage for the development of new therapies. The MD-CARE Act (Public Law 107-84), which allocates federal resources to muscular dystrophy, was approved by Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States in 2001. This has shifted the emphasis toward translational research. To facilitate a push toward therapy for muscle disorders, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) sponsored a meeting with representatives from industry, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and academia. Each contributed in different ways. The FDA helped define the necessary data to support investigational new drug (IND) applications including the design of proof-of-principle studies, outcome measures for clinical trials, and the pathway for developing surrogate measures for fast-tracking promising new drugs. The NIH, other government agencies, and the MDA described potential funding sources for translational research. Industry delineated a complementary role with academia, and academic investigators elucidated the current strengths and weaknesses of available clinical endpoints. The meeting provided a format for communication for diverse disciplines that usually have no common meeting ground, helping to lay the foundation for bringing products to market in a timely fashion.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Mendell et al. (2006) studied muscle disease. A stakeholders' meeting sponsored by the Muscular Dystrophy Association brought together industry, FDA, NIH, and academia to discuss strategies for accelerating drug development for muscle diseases.