Patient advocacy groups have exploded in number and scope in recent years and in many ways are reshaping the drug development landscape, from trial design to recruitment support to participation in the regulatory approval process. Thousands of organizations now advocate for millions of patients, and while many patients and families eagerly engage with these groups,...
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just updated its 2015 draft guidelines for drug discovery in rare diseases. The January update, Rare Diseases: Common Issues in Drug Development, seeks to help pharmaceutical companies and other sponsors perform more efficient development programs for drugs and biological products and provides new insights on complex elements of...
DURHAM, N.C., June 5, 2019 — Premier Research is sponsoring the Orphan & Rare Disease session track at this year’s BIO International Convention, June 3-6 in Philadelphia. Our own Angi Robinson, vice president for clinical development services in rare diseases and pediatrics, will participate in the panel discussion Rare Finds: Innovative Clinical Trial Design for...
In March 2019, the FDA released draft guidance on the design and implementation of natural history studies to support the development of safe and effective treatments for rare diseases. The document, Rare Diseases: Natural History Studies for Drug Development,[1] addresses one of the major challenges sponsors encounter when developing therapies for rare disease: the lack...
The field of gene medicine has a history filled with hope and tragedy, successes and cautionary tales. The world’s first gene therapy was approved in Europe in 2012, only to be taken off the market five years later due to regulatory and commercial barriers. Now, more than six years after the first approval, gene therapy...
Decades of painstaking research have recently begun to yield gene therapy products that are delivering meaningful benefits to human health. The approvals of voretigene neparvovec-rzyl (Luxturna) for inherited vision loss, tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) for lymphoblastic leukemia, and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) for lymphoma have ushered in a new era of therapeutics. With the rapid evolution of the...
Careful planning is important for all early drug development programs, but it is particularly critical in rare diseases where study populations are limited and precedents for drug development are lacking. Pre-IND meetings with the FDA give sponsors the opportunity to discuss their unique development challenges and determine where regulatory flexibility can be justified. While the...
Over the last two decades, biologics have improved the management of patients with psoriasis and advanced melanoma, many of whom either did not respond to traditional treatments or experienced severe side effects from them. With their success in deadly forms of melanoma and more common chronic inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis, drug developers are now targeting rarer...
In 1976, pop culture icon John Travolta starred in the made-for-television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble about a young man with a compromised immune system. The premise of the film is that Travolta’s character has to decide between living in isolation behind a protective bubble or dying engaged with the physical world. Hollywood...
DURHAM, N.C., October 30, 2018 — Angi Robinson, Executive Director for Rare Disease and Pediatrics at Premier Research, will discuss clinical development strategies for genetic rare disease research November 7 at the World Orphan Drug Congress in Barcelona. Ms. Robinson’s presentation, starting at 2:20 p.m., will examine management of confirmatory testing and specialty labs, the...