Oxford BioDynamics teams up with King's College in bid to boost rheumatoid arthritis prevention

Oxford BioDynamics Plc is teaming up with researchers at King's College London in a bid to further enhance the prevention of people developing crippling rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

The company's technology and products are based on its EpiSwitch platform, which can build diagnostic markers to predict responses to therapy, patient prognosis and disease diagnosis.

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The company's collaboration with Kings College comes after the latter's successful multicentre Phase 2b clinical trial (called APIPPRA) of the drug Abatacept, which involved 213 individuals at high risk of RA.

It was the largest rheumatoid arthritis prevention trial to date and the first to show that a therapy licensed for use in treating established rheumatoid arthritis was also effective in preventing the onset of disease in people at risk.

Data showed that 92.8% of patients at risk of RA, when treated with Abatacept, remained RA-free at the end of one year of treatment, however around 25% of the group ultimately progressed to RA by the end of the second year after stopping treatment.

This result thus highlights the importance of an accurate risk assessment and the need for tools to identify individuals who will have a durable, efficacious response.

Professor Andrew Cope, who led the King's College London, trial said: "There are currently no drugs available that prevent this potentially crippling disease.

"The initial results from the APIPPRA trial could be good news for people at risk of arthritis.

"We are excited about our collaboration with Oxford Biodynamics and the early results in helping us identify patients at highest risk and how to reduce it. EpiSwitch technology is delivering biomarkers of high biological relevance."

Dr Alexandre Akoulitchev, CSO at OBD, added: "With fast adoption of EpiSwitch 3D genomic biomarkers across many fields, our collaboration with Professor Cope is of particular importance.

"The value delivered by our proven biomarker technology in the field of prognostic and predictive biomarkers in oncology, should and would be matched by applications in rheumatoid arthritis.

"Treatment of autoimmune conditions could greatly benefit from the accuracy and robustness of blood-based EpiSwitch readouts. With regards to delivering benefits to patients and health system economics, there is no time to lose."

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) afflicts more than 500,000 people in the UK and another 1.5 million in the US. If not adequately treated, the condition leads to destruction of synovial joints and significant disability.

Abatacept is a biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drug recommended for the treatment of RA.