Multiple Sclerosis care project forms alliance for new treatments

Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis (ACP-MS) has announced the Orion Bionetworks alliance.

The project aims to unlock the power of shared data and predictive modelling to boost understanding of diseases including multiple sclerosis to improve the search for treatments.

Orion Bionetworks is a program of the Marin Community Fund, which is a nonprofit corporation funded by the Janssen Research and Development.

To begin with, the alliance will focus on integrating clinical biomarker and imaging data with real-world patient data with information from existing independent databases of more than 7,000 people with MS.

ACP-MS will contribute to the alliance with its prowess in MS and innovative approaches to tackle MS and similar disorders.

As well as this, it will work alongside other organisations in patient care computational modelling and translational research, such as PatientsLikeMe.

Orion Bionetworks will see ACP-MS access the datasets of all members of the alliance, with support coming from Orion to carry out data-mining activities to find new knowledge that will result in improved treatments and cures for MS.

Robert McBurney chief executive officer of ACP-MS, said: "Orion is demonstrating that a predictive disease modeling alliance that uses real-world patient data can have an unprecedented ability to drive toward better treatments and ultimately cures for multiple sclerosis and other devastating brain disorders.

"Our involvement in the alliance is a direct result of the remarkable effort that ACP-MS the staff of 10 MS clinics nationwide and people with MS and related diseases have made to create the open-access ACP Repository of biosamples and data."

ACP-MS is a nonprofit organisation with an aim to accelerate research efforts to improve the quality of life for individuals with multiple sclerosis.

It promotes scientific collaboration and speeds up research and prep work by rapidly and cost-effectively giving researchers the biospecimens they need to investigate novel research ideas.

Posted by Ben Evans