Sir Martin Landray
Chief Executive, Protas and Joint Lead, RECOVERY trial of treatments for COVID-19
In recent decades, while global life expectancy has improved, the burden of common and other life-threatening conditions on global populations continues to rise.
Despite this trend, the development of new treatments for major health conditions such as heart and lung disease, arthritis, depression and dementia has dwindled, with focus instead on rare conditions where returns on investment are more predictable.
Billion-dollar price tag
The economics of developing new treatments for common disease are challenging. Large, pivotal late-stage trials typically have a billion-dollar price tag which prevents the development and evaluation of new and exciting treatments that have the potential to benefit populations. The commercial risk is just too high for most companies to ever reach this stage.
This problem can be solved by increasing the availability and affordability of high quality, large-scale randomised clinical trials to properly assess possible treatments for these diseases. This is why we have established Protas.
Large, pivotal late-stage trials typically have a billion-dollar price tag which prevents the development and evaluation of new and exciting treatments.
Smart global clinical trials
Protas will design and deliver smart global clinical trials of treatments for common and other life-threatening diseases at a fraction of today’s costs.
We are bringing our experience of conducting landmark trials of new and established treatments, including as Co-Principal Investigator of the RECOVERY trial into treatments for COVID-19 and the ORION-4 trial into Inclisiran undertaken as part Oxford University’s Clinical Trials Service Unit. These trials demonstrated the huge potential to cuts costs and enable the development of better treatments by minimising complexity and only including the essential elements needed for a trial.
We will:
- Focus on smart and robust design that will provide a reliable answer to an important question.
- Streamline delivery: working with patients and clinicians to ensure trials are designed to be practical, accessible and inclusive.
- Use technology to support the safe, trustworthy and efficient use of data.
- Operate as a non-profit organisation, making trials more affordable to benefit public health.
We are confident that this approach can transform the opportunities for development of new treatments for those common diseases that place a major threat to public health around the world.