Desperately Ill Patients Will Get Better Access to Experimental Treatments Through New Effort

MICHR Leads $4.8M Federally Funded Project

Patients fighting life-threatening illnesses who have run out of conventional options will get a chance to try some of the most cutting-edge treatments available, through a national effort that just received nearly $4.8 million in funding from the federal government. MICHR will coordinate the new project, called TEAMSS for Transforming Expanded Access to Maximize Support and Study. The lead principal investigator of this grant is MICHR Director George Mashour; Kevin Weatherwax is the co-principal investigator and Misty Gravelin is co-investigator. 

Based at U-M, in partnership with Duke University, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Rochester, the effort will build a national framework to help more patients gain access to experimental drugs, devices and biologics. It is funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The partner universities will build a national framework for more efficient, consistent and widespread use of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Expanded Access process, to help more hospitals offer experimental options to their patients and gather data on the impact.

Read the full Michigan Medicine article here.