Innovative Trials partners with MS Society on multiple sclerosis R&D

13-Jun-2022 - Last updated on 13-Jun-2022 at 13:15 GMT

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The patient recruitment solutions company plans to work with the charity to support research and clinical trials through a range of fundraising activities.

Patient recruitment specialist Innovative Trials has announced plans to help fund research into multiple sclerosis through a partnership with the MS Society. Each year, Innovative Trials chooses a charity partner as part of its effort to support faster patient access to life-improving treatments. This year, the company’s staff “overwhelmingly voted” to support the MS Society, reflecting recent contract wins for the UK-based clinical trials patient recruitment business.

“When choosing a charity, we always look for one that supports some of the disease trials we work on; we recently won a few MS projects so this condition was clearly still in people's minds when it came to voting for our next charity partner. Some of our employees also have family members affected by MS, making it a no-brainer when it came to choosing the MS Society,” said Kate Shaw, founder and CEO of Innovative Trials.

Having selected the MS Society as its 2022-2023 charity partner, Innovative Trials plans to raise at least £3,000 ($3,800 USD) by running fundraising activities such as a summer raffle, bake-off competition, monthly salary sacrifice donations, and a preloved item sale. The senior leadership team will match the amount raised by their colleagues.

The MS Society uses the funding it receives to support research into the causes of MS and to help run clinical trials, for example by co-funding the MS-STAT2 study to evaluate whether the lipid-lowering statin simvastatin can improve outcomes in people with secondary progressive MS. University College, London, and its collaborators are enrolling more than 1,000 patients in the MS-STAT2 study.

In previous years, Innovative Trials has raised money for Crohn’s and Colitis UK and Alzheimer’s Research UK. The selection of MS Society as the latest charity partner positions the patient recruitment specialist to support research in a therapeutic area that is an active part of its business.

“Innovative Trials has experience in supporting more than 30 neurology and musculoskeletal studies. including several for MS, over the past 12 years. We currently have four MS studies live and another that was recently awarded,” said Shaw.