The Foundation for the NIH Announces a New Research Initiative to Find Integrated Treatments Across Common Metabolic Diseases

North Bethesda, MD, May 26, 2021 – The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are announcing today a new partnership to investigate links across serious common diseases that researchers believe may share the same biological causes. Utilizing a patient-centric approach, the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Program for Common Metabolic Diseases (AMP® CMD) will focus on clarifying these links among at least six serious metabolic diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and kidney diseases and liver diseases such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

Metabolic diseases affect one-third of the global population, leading to a high public health and medical burden. So far, drug development has concentrated on treating individual diseases, but growing evidence shows that the presence of one metabolic disease substantially increases the risk to develop others. Many patients experience several such diseases throughout their lifetime, strongly suggesting common underlying causality.  AMP CMD will help sort out these links.” said Maria C. Freire, Ph.D., President and Executive Director of the FNIH.

AMP CMD is the latest research effort launched so far by NIH, the FNIH, biopharmaceutical companies and patient non-profit organizations to better understand the molecular basis of common diseases and find disease targets and biomarkers that can lead to more effective treatments. The NIDDK and four pharmaceutical companies are investing $57 million over five years to support AMP CMD.

The new partnership will build on scientific advances and analytical tools developed as part of a previous AMP research program in type 2 diabetes, including a Knowledge Portal, a rich database of genetic information from more than 1.5 million individuals with diabetes and related conditions worldwide. AMP CMD will add substantial amounts of new information from participants in studies from the other metabolic diseases and develop new tools to analyze the links between them. As with the other AMP programs, the resulting data will be made broadly and rapidly available to the entire scientific research community while carefully protecting the personal information of individual participants.

“By bringing together public and private entities for a common cause, the AMP partnership has boosted the discovery of potential to find new treatments for some of the country’s most common and challenging conditions,” said NIDDK Director Dr. Griffin P. Rodgers. “By expanding the AMP Type 2 Diabetes resources to include five additional metabolic diseases, researchers will now have a robust resource through which they can make crucial advances to improve the health of the millions of people living with these conditions.”

Amgen, Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer Inc. will provide a total of $17 million to AMP CMD to complement $40 million in research funding provided by NIDDK.  The FNIH will provide program and project management for the effort over the next five years. 

Read what the partners are saying

About AMP: AMP CMD joins other AMP programs expediting discovery around Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Schizophrenia, and Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus, all coordinated by the FNIH since the 2014 launch of the large-scale initiative. The AMP partnerships use cutting-edge scientific approaches to bring new medicines to patients by enhancing validation of novel, clinically relevant therapeutic targets and biomarkers. To learn more about AMP, visit https://fnih.org/AMP.

About the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health: The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) creates and manages alliances with public and private institutions in support of the mission of the NIH. The FNIH works with its partners to accelerate biomedical research and strategies against diseases and health concerns in the United States and across the globe. Established by Congress in 1990, the FNIH is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. For additional information about the FNIH, please visit https://fnih.org.

About the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases (NIDDK): The NIDDK, part of the NIH, conducts and supports basic and clinical research and research training on some of the most common, severe and disabling conditions affecting Americans. The Institute’s research interests include diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition and obesity; and kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases. For more information, visit https://www.niddk.nih.gov/.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov/.

 

ACCELERATING MEDICINES PARTNERSHIP and AMP are registered service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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