Autoimmune, inflammatory and allergic diseases are common chronic diseases that significantly affect the wellbeing of millions of people around the globe and pose a substantial burden to healthcare systems. While different treatments are available for diseases such as allergy and airways diseases, response and disease progression in individual patients remain unpredictable.
In 2019, EFA partnered in 3TR, a collaborative project funded by the public-private Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) that will look into the cellular mechanisms driving disease development of seven different immune-mediated, allergic and inflammatory diseases, including asthma and COPD.
With a total grant of more than €80 million over the next seven years, 69 partners from 15 European countries, including academic and research institutions, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), pharmaceutical companies and patient organisations like EFA, all consortium partners we hope to get high-end research results to better predict treatment response and potentially identify novel biomarkers leading to improved patient management and personalised therapy.
EFA, in collaboration with the European Lung Foundation, will bring to 3TR the patient voice as an organisation and through individual patients, as their participation is crucial to ensure research stays connected to patient needs, experiences and values. In practice, we will establish and coordinate a Patient Advisory Board, composed of patients with asthma and COPD, to provide advice and ensure patients are at the centre of the project activities, including asthma and COPD patient priorities, data collection and the design of clinical research and dissemination activities.
