European Project set to tackle RA through coordinated efforts

A new European consortium with aims to discover new ways to maximise the impact of prescription drugs for patients suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis, has welcomed industry partner Daman, a digital healthcare company based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Digital healthcare tools and biomarkers are expected to play a key role in the new SQUEEZE project which is focused on overcoming real-life challenges of drug therapy by addressing behavioural and psychosocial aspects such as non-adherence, psychosocial burdens, perceptions, comorbidities and dosage of medicine.

Coordinated by the Medical University of Vienna, the consortium of 13 leading European organisations including university hospitals, research institutions and healthcare companies will conduct the 5-year project which is being co-funded by Horizon Europe. Due to start between late 2022 and early 2023, total funding for the project is 12m Euros.

Affecting more than 3 million patients in the EU and 17.6 million worldwide, Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune chronic disease with massive impact on patients’ quality of life with significant socio-economic implications. New precision medicine tools are expected to emerge from the project.

"The SQUEEZE project is a great privilege to join – I guess it is fair to characterise the consortium as a partnership of the leading and most well-respected European stakeholders within Rheumatoid Arthritis. DAMAN’s role in the SQUEEZE project will focus on development, implementation and pilot testing of digital therapeutics based on our novelty in building next generation healthcare solutions with precision medicine. By the end of the project a digital therapeutic tool utilising a recommendation engine for patients and healthcare professionals will be implemented," said company ceo  Andreas Dam.

One of the world’s most renowned rheumatology scientists, Professor at the Medical University of Vienna and President-Elect of The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Daniel Aletaha commented: "Over the past decades promising new treatments for Rheumatoid Arthritis have been introduced. When successful, the SQUEEZE project will enable us to match patient and medical treatment in a significantly more precise manner moving from a trial-and-error treatment regime to a brand-new and patient-focused innovative care model for Rheumatoid Arthritis. The SQUEEZE project has the potential to become a milestone for RA-patients as well as for precision medicine and precision health in general.”

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