As a not-for-profit organization, our mission is to reduce the burden of common disease on patients

Whilst average global life-expectancy has improved in recent decades, the burden of common conditions continues to rise around the world. The development of new, more effective treatments for the most common diseases that impact the lives of most people has dwindled as late-phase clinical trials have become prohibitively costly and excessively complex. This has led to a substantial shift in drug development away from these conditions to those which are more commercially attractive.

Protas was formed in late 2020, motivated by the need for a new approach to randomized clinical trials to address the crisis in evidence-based treatments for major international health threats, including infectious and non-communicable diseases.

Our founders have decades of experience of conducting landmark trials of new and established treatments for common conditions such as heart and kidney disease, diabetes, stroke, and most recently COVID-19. These demonstrate the impact that the combination of expert trial design with approved access to data, modern technology and collaboration with frontline clinicians can have on individual patient health and the quality of care they receive.

The organisation is led by Sir Martin Landray, Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology at Oxford University and co-principal investigator for the RECOVERY Trial for COVID-19 and Lord David Prior, Chair of NHS England.