PPD and Lupus Therapeutics Collaborate to Support Lupus Clinical Research

PPD, Inc. and Lupus Therapeutics (LT), an affiliate of the Lupus Research Alliance known for its lupus clinical trials expertise, have entered into a collaboration to expand and enhance lupus clinical research for PPD’s pharmaceutical and biotech customers.

Through the collaboration, PPD can provide enhanced protocol and trial optimization capabilities for its customers, drawing on LT’s scientific, operational and drug development expertise, as well as LT’s preferred investigators and Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN) sites. In turn, in association with PPD, LT can provide patients with greater access to novel medicines and clinical care.

PPD’s immunology team has a dedicated group of experienced professionals with extensive lupus expertise, along with board-certified rheumatologists with industry and in-house experience in efficacy reviews, safety monitoring and site training for SLE trials. Through this collaboration, PPD has access to the more than 50 LuCIN research sites with over 200 affiliated investigators, who collectively see more than 20,000 active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients.

“Lupus Therapeutics is an exemplary organization to collaborate with because of its extensive lupus expertise,” said Karen Kaucic, M.D., PPD’s chief medical officer. “With site staff who have experience across multiple studies, a known, reliable network of investigators and sites ready to initiate clinical trials awarded work, and an established track record of success in this therapeutic area, we believe the collaboration between Lupus Therapeutics and PPD within immunology will play an important role in treating lupus.”

Through this joint endeavor, PPD and its customers will benefit from the LT Patient Advocates for Lupus Studies (PALS) program, through which patient-to-patient interactions facilitate and improve clinical trial education and awareness for ongoing trial activities at participating LT centers.

“With the urgent need for new lupus treatments, we look forward to working with PPD on ways to accelerate and optimize the development of lupus clinical research,” said Albert T. Roy, executive director, Lupus Therapeutics. “We anticipate that the combined scientific, operational and drug development expertise within our two organizations will significantly increase the efficiency of lupus trials and enable us to obtain the lupus community’s perspective to incorporate into studies while they are being designed. Our goal is to deliver new therapies as quickly as possible that meet patients’ priorities.”

Lupus is a chronic condition in which a person’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs, causing inflammation that can damage any part of the body. Lupus is difficult to diagnose because its signs and symptoms can imitate a wide variety of other ailments.

Some of the key indications that Lupus Therapeutics addresses include SLE, lupus nephritis, chronic cutaneous (discoid) lupus, subacute cutaneous lupus, acute cutaneous lupus and central nervous system lupus.