The COPD Foundation recently announced the COPD360 program, an innovative initiative to boost research and promote new approaches for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). AstraZeneca is sponsoring the program in their continued efforts to treat COPD, a type of inflammatory lung disease that includes both chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Patients suffering from COPD have chronic respiratory troubles such as difficulty in breathing and uncontrollable coughing.
The COPD360 program will create one of the largest networks of COPD patients and will enroll 125,000 patients through integrated research registry databases composed of physicians’ registries and the COPD Patient-Powered Research Network. It is expected that once completed in the next 3 to 5 years, the COPD360 program will combine patient-reported results, electronic medical records, clinical data and observational research, creating the largest COPD research network ever assembled. The patients in the registry have agreed to share their health informations and testimonies on how the disease has changed their lives. The database is expected to significantly help in the advancement of novel opportunities for researchers to identify new treatment approaches that might lead to a cure.
“I would like to thank AstraZeneca for becoming a founding corporate sponsor of COPD360. This substantial commitment will make an immediate impact on our ability to enroll patients and to build a community of active research participants. We all want to see faster progress towards therapeutic treatments and cures for COPD and this collaboration highlights how patients, nonprofits, researchers and pharmaceutical companies can work together to accomplish just that,” said John Walsh, Co-Founder and President of COPD, in a press release.
[adrotate group=”3″]
Greg Keenan, AstraZeneca’s representative, said: “AstraZeneca is proud to be a founding sponsor of this pioneering effort. This is an innovative undertaking that we truly believe will enable faster recruitment for clinical trials and spur COPD research at an unprecedented level.”
About $2.5 million worth of funds is allotted to the COPD360 initiative by the COPD Foundation.
In other developments in COPD, a recent study entitled “Chronic Bronchitis is Associated with Worse Symptoms and Quality of Life than Chronic Airflow Obstruction” was published in Chest by Dr. Paula Meek, first author from the College of Nursing at University of Colorado-Denver, and Dr. Yohannes Tesfaigzi, senior author from the COPD Research Program at Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in Albuquerque, NM, along with colleagues. The study suggested that among individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, those with chronic bronchitis present worse quality of life symptoms and mental health than individuals with chronic airway obstruction.