Black and White Answers to Tough Questions in RA Drug Development

Drug Development in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Black and White Answers to Tough Questions

We picked 3 hot topics and invited 3 outstanding speakers to join a live webinar focused on the drug development in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA):

- Unmet needs in RA drug development: do we still need new therapies?
- Trial design: is clinical score enough?
- Earlier decisions in RA drug development: how imaging and technology can support your clinical programs?

While the rheumatoid arthritis drug pipeline is robust with over 240 molecules under study, many will drop off through natural attrition. It has been shown that only 40% of patients are ACR70 responders, which indicates a need for more effective treatment options.

The drug development process is complex, with greater focus being put on personalization of therapeutic strategies, both in the choice of molecules and their place in a patient treatment pathway.

This webinar will be a live discussion on several hot topics. The moderator and the speakers will start with discussing the need for new therapies and what new therapies mean for the market. The second topic will be focused on trial design, remission as an outcome, patient inclusion, trial enrichment and patient phenotyping. The third topic is the use of imaging biomarkers and technology to achieve earlier decisions on treatment efficacy and practical aspects of RA clinical trials.

Prof. Mikael Boesen

is a professor of musculoskeletal imaging and hands-on radiologist with 20 years of international experience in clinical research in inflammatory and degenerative joint diseases. Dr. Boesen is a global PI, speaker, and author of 80+ articles and book chapters. He brings together cross-therapeutic area expertise and helps drug developers to think outside the box when it comes to designing clinical trials and selection imaging strategy. Prof. Boesen is IAG’s Lead for Musculoskeletal Clinical Research.
Dr. Lee Simon

is a rheumatologist, physician and research scientist with extensive drug development experience. He served as a director of FDA division for of Analgesic, Anti-inflammatory and Ophthalmologic Drug Products and currently advises many biotech and pharma companies on designing impactful clinical programs. Dr. Simon is Principal Consults and member of IAG’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Prof. Philip Conaghan

is an academic rheumatologist and Director of the arthritis research Institute at the University of Leeds, UK. He has major research interests in understanding pathogenesis and improving the therapies for common arthritides, especially osteoarthritis, rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis, with a focus on outcome measurement, modern imaging modalities, and optimising patient phenotypes for clinical trials and practice.
Dr. Olga Kubassova

CEO of IAG, Image Analysis Group, mathematician and computer scientist with 10+ years expertise in actively managing innovation in life science companies. Scientific interests are in quantitative imaging and development of novel efficacy methodologies, with AI, Machine Learning for fast objective early decisions in clinical trials.