Protagen AG Joins MATURA Consortium To Support Identification Of Treatment Response Predictors In Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)

LONDON & MANCHESTER, England & DORTMUND, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Protagen AG, a company concerned with the development of advanced diagnostic tools to address some of the most severe autoimmune diseases, has today announced that it will join the MATURA Consortium. The overarching mission of the MATURA Consortium is to improve patient care in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) by rationalizing therapy decisions through a stratified medicine approach.

“We are delighted that Protagen has joined our Consortium. There are currently a number of biologic treatments in RA and at the moment, we have no way of predicting favorable patient drug response before therapy selection and treatment”

MATURA (MAximising Therapeutic Utility for Rheumatoid Arthritis) aims to identify treatment response predictors which will allow the allocation of patients to subgroups defined by the therapy they are most likely to respond to, early in the disease process. RA provides the ideal setting for the introduction of a stratified medicine approach as the treatment is standardized, there is a significant non-responder rate to each marketed and commonly used drug, and early and effective therapy has consistently been shown to improve long-term outcomes, including joint damage, disability and employment.

Professor Costantino Pitzalis from Queen Mary University of London, who leads the Consortium, said: “We are delighted that Protagen has joined our Consortium. There are currently a number of biologic treatments in RA and at the moment, we have no way of predicting favorable patient drug response before therapy selection and treatment”. Professor Anne Barton from the University of Manchester, who co-leads the consortium, explained: “Being able to accurately predict whether a treatment will work or not, would lead to more targeted and individual treatments as well as greater efficacy and better quality of life for patients. Protagen and its unique, proprietary SeroTag^® platform is a new key asset to our group of established industry partners, and significantly support our quest for Treatment Response Predictors”.

Stefan Müllner, Protagen CEO, adds, “Our innovative SeroTag^® technology allows for the first time the systematic determination of response prediction markers to select the most appropriate drug and therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis. In addition, it enables new approaches for successful drug development, and to support patients, rheumatologists, payers and the pharma industry in our combined effort to improve patient management by rationalizing treatment decision. This is exactly what MATURA is aiming for and we feel privileged to be part of the Consortium and support these efforts.”

About MATURA

The MATURA consortium aims to enable early, effective treatment and improve the cost-effectiveness of care of RA patients in the UK. The project is a stratified medicine consortium funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Arthritis Research UK. The MATURA consortium combines 12 academic groups with 10 industry partners, http://www.matura.whri.qmul.ac.uk/academic_and_industry_partners.php

The MATURA consortium is jointly led by Professor Costantino Pitzalis, Queen Mary University of London and Professor Anne Barton of the University of Manchester. It will search for biological and genetic markers in blood and joints, as clues to how patients will respond to drugs used in the treatment of RA. MATURA is a major initiative to developing stratified medicine in inflammatory arthritis. It aims at identifying treatment response predictors that will allow people with RA to be started on drugs which they will benefit from most, early in the disease process.

About Protagen – Diagnostics Differentiated

Protagen AG, headquartered in Dortmund, Germany, specializes in the development of novel diagnostic and companion diagnostic tests to provide better and earlier diagnosis of autoimmune diseases.

Protagen uses its proprietary SeroTag^® biomarker platform to identify disease specific autoantibodies and is on target to become the leading provider of autoimmune diagnostic products, specifically targeting diseases with an unmet need for effective diagnostics. With pioneering bioscience techniques, extensive scientific expertise and a broad patent portfolio, Protagen works to develop its own diagnostic pipeline and partners with other organizations to develop and implement new companion diagnostic tools for better personalized treatment strategies.

For more information, please visit www.protagen.com