Large Scale Initiative to Study Treatment Responses

Owlstone Medical, which specialises in breath biopsy applications has joined 3TR, a large-scale public-private research initiative that aims to provide new insights into the mechanisms of response and non-response to treatment within and across seven different immune-mediated, allergic and inflammatory diseases. The company will provide stations and kits for the collection of breath samples and analysis services of results obtained for evaluation alongside clinical and physiological evaluation and blood analysis.

The project unites experts from 69 academic and industrial partner institutions, including multiple top-ten pharma, covering 15 European countries. Under the initiative, 3TR will have access to an unprecedented quantity of clinical data and samples of more than 50,000 patients across 50 ongoing and new clinical trials, ultimately aiming to discover and verify stratification biomarkers to improve patient management. Operating under the IMI2 umbrella, 3TRsets out to fundamentally increase knowledge of the molecular pathways and mechanisms linked to response and non-response to a range of therapies. Owlstone Medical will have full access to the data generated and the rights to develop biomarkers discovered into clinical tests.

Disease profiles under study will include systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease (including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease), asthma and COPD. Despite their heterogeneity, recent studies have shown that on the molecular level certain patterns are shared by patients across these diseases, thus suggesting they may also share pathways of response to treatment and disease progression.

Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: 3TR’s ground-breaking approach to addressing this problem through integrated cross-disease analysis, led by leading academic, pharmaceutical and other organisations, is one that Owlstone Medical is excited to be making a unique contribution to.”

The 3TR team officially kicked off their activities with a first meeting in Granada, Spain, which was held from 30-31 October 2019.