On September 14, 2016, the Therapeutic Transplant Consortium (TTC) had its inaugural face-to-face meeting in Arlington, Virginia, to lay the groundwork for a collaborative effort to address the major challenges regarding the development of new therapies for transplant patients. Since that meeting, the TTC has been building a broad collation of key stakeholders in the transplant environment with the pledged support of numerous large and small biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry partners. As we drive toward our members kick-off teleconference in early 2017, we are still soliciting new consortia members. If you are interested, please contact asts@asts.org for further information.
The TTC is a partnership founded by the Critical Path Institute (C-Path), the American Society of Transplantation (AST), and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) with the goal of bringing together the leading transplant societies, pharmaceutical companies, and regulatory authorities to enable the development of a consensus-driven roadmap capable of delivering the regulatory endorsement of new drug development tools and therapies for transplantation.
A major challenge in the management of transplant recipients is a lack of accurate and specific tests for immune monitoring and for predicting sub-acute, acute, and chronic graft function. Genomic and proteomic platforms have led to the development of promising biomarkers but without consensus on application in clinical research and clinical practice. Immunotherapies are currently being developed for regulatory approval in immune disorders, but not in transplantation. Research of new drugs for use in transplantation is often not pursued as transplant patients often have additional co-morbidities and use in this population could adversely affect the side effect profile in the drug label. This in turn could impact its use and market success in other disease areas, especially those with a larger prevalence. Therefore, these drugs are often used in transplantation but outside the indications for which they received regulatory approval.