A Centre of Excellence for Explorative Cardiovascular Studies is set up, aiming at boosting patient-centricity in research and development and improving treatment outcomes in cardiovascular disease (CVD) management. — VNS Photo
Bayer and the National Heart Centre Singapore recently announced a five-year deal to set up a Centre of Excellence for Explorative Cardiovascular Studies aimed at boosting patient-centricity in research and development and improving treatment outcomes in cardiovascular disease (CVD) management.
By combining the heart centre‘s vast experience in managing Asian CVD patients and clinical research and Bayer’s expertise in pharmaceutical R&D, the new centre will generate and integrate high-quality patient data into early clinical research, which will allow better understanding of the underlying biology of CVDs.
The results could potentially lead to future targeted therapies to address unmet medical needs in defined patient populations.
Bayer will contribute S$5.4 million for setting it up.
The Asia Pacific accounts for more than half of the world's CVD cases, which is projected to rise with the region’s ageing trends.
In Singapore alone, 17 people die of CVDs every day, including one in three due to heart disease or stroke. Despite this high unmet need, there is a lack of understanding of the causes and consequences of co-morbidities, disease onset/progression and treatment outcomes in Asian CVD patients.
Current research into CVD does not take into account the diverse characteristics of Asian CVD patients. Reliable data and standardised approaches in understanding disease patterns including risk profiles among such patients are critical to developing more effective CVD therapies.
“The setting up of the centre marks a significant milestone to encourage a more sustainable output of patient-centric cardiovascular research into Asian patient populations, which will in turn impact clinical practice and healthcare priorities in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region,” Prof Terrance Chua, medical director and senior consultant of the NHCS‘s department of cardiology, said.
“Our collaboration in this initiative will open up possibilities for other Asian centres to contribute, collaborate and expand the collective knowledge and expertise on cardiovascular disease management.“
Professor Carolyn Lam, senior consultant at the department and the principal investigator at the centre, said „This will accelerate the development of more effective therapies to better manage and treat Asian CVD patients.“
The collaboration will see researchers from NHCS and Bayer working together for the next five years.
The centre will address three key areas of research: continuous generation of new data and analysis of existing data of CVD patients and healthy individuals for early research studies, Deep understanding of the underlying disease biology in humans to identify, based on the mechanism, specific patient groups that can benefit from targeted therapies and exploring the pharmacological potential of a candidate cardiovascular drug via explorative human studies to validate biology and demonstrate efficacy.
“Singapore’s high-quality research infrastructure, world-class healthcare system and its diverse population make it an ideal Asian research hub and digital test bed for experimental clinical pharmacology and early cardiovascular studies,” Philip Larsen, head of pre-clinical research, Bayer Pharmaceuticals Division, said. “Bayer’s collaboration with the National Heart Centre Singapore demonstrates our continued commitment to growing our cardiovascular research in Singapore and in Asia, to improve our current understanding of cardiovascular diseases and deliver better treatments to patients.”
Bayer has so far invested more than S$27 million in research into Asian diseases (oncology and CVD) in Singapore.
Over the last four years it has invested some S$6.1 million to understand the Asian phenotype of heart failure with ASIAN-HF.
Bayer has ensured that the Asia Pacific population is well represented in its R&D activities, with the number of ongoing clinical trials spanning oncology and cardiovascular indications conducted in the Asia Pacific more than doubling from 21 in 2007 to 50 in 2019, including 22 in Singapore. — VNS