drug repurposing – EJP RD – European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases

New article: Identifying obstacles hindering the conduct of academic-sponsored trials for drug repurposing on rare-diseases: an analysis of six use cases

Onakoy Tanguy — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 08:40:47 +0000

A new article entitled Identifying obstacles hindering the conduct of academic-sponsored trials for drug repurposing on rare-diseases: an analysis of six use cases has been published on September 15th. This paper, in which EJP RD members participated in, identifies hurdles in the set-up of six multinational clinical trials for drug repurposing, as use cases.

Read the article here (open access)

EMA webinar on repurposing of authorised medicines pilot programme

Ngangta Mbaidoum — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 16:35:03 +0000

In October 2021, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Heads of Medicines Agencies (HMA) announced a pilot project to support the repurposing of medicines.

To support not-for-profit organisations and academia ahead of the upcoming deadline for submission (February 28th), the EMA is hosting a “walk-in” clinic webinar on February 17th from 17.00 – 18.00 CET.

The webinar will:

provide a brief reminder of the repurposing pilot
provide information on how EMA real-world evidence initiatives can support the pilot
have an open Q&A session to answer any questions

The deadline for webinar registration is February 14th.

More information about the pilot: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/repurposing-authorised-medicines-pilot-support-not-profit-organisations-academia

Webinar registration: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/2aad8a2c-8707-64bd-1b4a-239f000dd854

Call for Members: IRDiRC Task Force on Drug Repurposing Guidebook

Ngangta Mbaidoum — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 15:40:25 +0000

The Therapies Scientific Committee of the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) is establishing a Task Force on Drug Repurposing Guidebook to help developers (of all kinds) navigating the rare disease landscape and identifying specific tools and practices of relevance for repurposing projects.

The creation of the Development Guidebook will focus on repurposing approaches, following the same successful methodology used for the Orphan Drug Development Guidebook, i.e. explore incentives, regulatory tools, initiatives, development tools (‘building blocks’) that exists or are missing for drug repurposing.

Therefore, the TSC is specifically looking for members to populate this Task Force with the below qualities and expertise in one or more of the following areas:

Drug developers with expertise in repurposing
Scientists / Clinicians
Regulators
Public or private rare disease research funders (including investors)
Patient Advocates
Patent experts
Rare Disease Policy experts
Methodologists (real-world evidence, target validation, AI, in-silico)

Ideally, IRDiRC would like to see an even participation of experts from different geographical regions.

How to Apply?

If you are interested in taking part in this activity: Please send a CV, biosketch and letter of motivation (one paragraph each) to the Scientific Secretariat (scisec-irdirc [at] ejprarediseases.org) before the 25^th of February 2022.

Importantly, do not forget to add in the subject of your email the reference of the project (Ref: TF-IRDIRC-RepGuidebook).

Only selected candidates will be contacted. Other applications will be kept for potential future use.

European Medicines Agency (EMA) launches pilot project on drug repurposing

Ngangta Mbaidoum — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 11:48:29 +0000

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Heads of Medicines Agencies (HMA) are launching a pilot project to support the repurposing of medicines. The aim of this initiative is to support not-for-profit organisations and academia to gather or generate sufficient evidence on the use of an established medicine in a new indication with the view to have this new use formally authorised by a regulatory authority.

As part of the pilot, EMA and the national medicines agencies will provide regulatory support, primarily scientific advice, to help these stakeholders generate a data package robust enough to support a future application by a pharmaceutical company.

The pilot is open to not-for-profit stakeholders and academia (institutions and individuals) who have a particular interest in repurposing in an area of public health interest, have a scientific rationale for their repurposing programme and would like to seek scientific advice from a regulatory authority.

The EMA is accepting submissions from sponsors until February 28th, 2022.

For more information: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/repurposing-authorised-medicines-pilot-support-not-profit-organisations-academia

Drug repurposing for rare disease workshop series

Onakoy Tanguy — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 08:06:16 +0000

EJP RD is co-organising a series of 3 workshops dedicated to drug repurposing for rare disease. Registration links will be provided soon. Registration is free but places are limited.

This first session, which will be held on October 21st, is entitled “An introduction to drug repurposing for rare diseases – the benefits, the process and the development scenarios”

The parts 2 and 3 are planned for:

Each 2-hour workshop will feature expert speakers sharing their experiences in the drug repurposing process on the basis of case studies, as well as an interactive Q&A session. The goal is to highlight the processes involved in each of the scenarios in drug repurposing, understand the main challenges and hear about solutions from the field.

This 3-part workshop is for academic researchers and research funders, policymakers and industry scientists interested in drug repurposing.

Findacure’s Drug Repurposing for Rare Diseases Conference 2021

Ngangta Mbaidoum — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:04:18 +0000

Findacure, a UK-based nonprofit that works in the rare disease sector, is organising its annual Drug Repurposing for Rare Diseases Conference 2021, which will be a fully online event bringing together patient groups, researchers, medical professionals and industry representatives to showcase innovative repurposing projects and encourage conversation between all members of the rare disease community.

The online conference will take place over two days on June 15 and 16, 2021.

The event will feature a series of expert presentations, examples of projects that are breaking new ground in the field of drug repurposing, interactive workshops, panel sessions and breakout rooms to facilitate delegate participation.

More information and registration here: https://www.findacure.org.uk/drug-repo-conference/