The beginning of Protas – the problem we’re trying to solve
Whilst global life-expectancy levels have improved in recent decades, the burden of common conditions on populations around the world continues to rise. In general, we’re living longer but spending more years with ill-health. According to a recent Lancet study, the burden of serious health-related suffering will almost double by 2060, with the fastest increases occurring in low-income countries, among older people, and people with dementia.[1] This can have significant impact on patients but also on health systems such as the NHS which are increasingly required to treat people with one or more common illnesses (e.g. acute infection, hip fracture, diabetes) that cause death and disability.
Despite this trend, the development of treatments for the most common conditions (cancers, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and other chronic and non-communicable diseases) has dwindled. Late-phase clinical trials, which test the efficacy of treatments, have become costly and complex, leading to a substantial shift in drug development away from common conditions and towards rare disease and particular sub-types of cancer which are less commercially challenging.
This is a market failure. The economics for developing new treatments for common diseases are no longer viable for biopharma companies and consequently, fewer therapies are being developed for the conditions that place the greatest burden on patients and the health systems which care for them. Making even a modest health difference in something common can have a huge impact on public health outcomes, but to pick up modest differences requires large randomized clinical trials.
This is why we started Protas in early 2021. We’re a not-for-profit organization running smart, large-scale clinical trials of treatments for common diseases. We will reduce barriers to the development of better treatments and improve public health outcomes by combining smart randomized trial design with effective technology and collaborative partnerships.
More information what we are can be found on the About us page.
[1]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(19)30172-X/fulltext
