BRU attends Association of Medical Research Charities parliamentary event
On 16th June, leading figures of the charity, public and private medical research community, including the BRU, gathered in Parliament to showcase ground-breaking research and the health, social and economic benefits it has brought to the UK.
Speakers made the case to MPs, peers and government officials attending the reception that a long-term commitment from this and future governments is needed.
The reception was organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Medical Research, and brought together researchers, patients, parliamentarians and government ministers. Researchers were given the opportunity to display their research to show how it has helped doctors tackle conditions such as arthritis, dementia, eye disease, Parkinson’s, and brain injury in newborn babies.
The BRU and The University of Manchester showcased the work of the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register for Rheumatoid Arthritis, the world’s largest prospective study of biologic drugs in rheumatoid arthritis. Since its creation in 2001, the register has recruited and followed over 22,000 NHS patients being treated with biologics. Amongst findings it showed better control of disease among patients who also continued with methotrexate therapy, a finding now incorporated in prescribing guidelines. This is just one example of how cutting edge research, funded by government, charities and industry, can lead to improve patient care and diagnostics.
Dr Kimme Hyrich, Reader in Rheumatic Disease Epidemiology at The University of Manchester and NIHR Manchester Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, said:
“It was fantastic to be given the opportunity to highlight to government the value of large national collaborative research projects such as this biologics register. The results from this project have improved the lives of people living with rheumatoid arthritis who require biologic therapies. Equally, this study has demonstrated how success can be achieved when multiple partners (academia, charitable funders, NHS consultants and nurses, the NIHR Clinical Research Network, and industry) work together to execute and deliver on such a large programme of work.”
The group has published a booklet of case studies, which shows how advances in medical research have brought great benefit to the UK’s health and economic prosperity to coincide with the event., including the work on the BSRBR-RA study,
