The new 3TR Trials- the promise of Personalised Medicine for RA

Please join us for an online talk by Costantino Pitzalis (Professor of Rheumatology at Queen Mary University of London) about the research taking place at the Centre for Experimental Medicine and Rheumatology (EMR) and by the 3TR consortium. Our research is centred around personalised medicine and whether analysing the tissue from the joints of people with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can predict if they will respond to certain treatments. Professor Pitzalis will talk about the results from RA biopsy driven studies and also new studies taking the first steps towards personalised medicine in Rheumatoid arthritis.

If you have any questions in advance of the talk please send them to emrclinicaltrials@qmul.ac.uk. There will also be the opportunity to ask questions during the talk using the chat function.

Please see below for more information about our research.

Background

There have been dramatic changes in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the last 20 years with the introduction of hugely effective new classes of drugs (Biologics) combined with a more aggressive treatment at an early stage to limit the damaging inflammatory process of this disease. However, in the midst of all these exciting medical advances there is still a big question that has not yet been solved - which patients will respond best to which drugs?

Current treatment for people with RA is a frustrating process of trial and error, with side effects and joint damage inevitable for many people who are given treatment that does not work for them.

What is personalised medicine?

There are particular markers within a person’s genetic makeup (biomarkers) that suggest that particular drug treatments will work better than others. Personalised medicine aims to help us identify the right treatment for patients, the first time.

What research has already been done?

Professor Pitzalis and his team at EMR led on the first biopsy based multicentre randomised controlled trial in RA (R4-RA). This study represents the first step towards a better understanding of the reason why some drugs work for some patients and others do not. The results of the R4RA trial were published in The Lancet and are publicly available to read here. A Q&A with Professor Pitzalis regarding the trial and its results can be found on the QMUL website.

The future

It is currently too early to know which drugs should be offered to which patients, but the R4-RA study has paved the way for the new 3TR studies where patients will be treated according to their biomarkers. The studies aim to find out if biomarkers in the tissue which surrounds the joints can predict response to drug treatments. Please visit the 3TR website here to learn more. Our research recruits patients from hospitals in the UK, as well as in Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium.