New Program Launched to Identify Autoimmune Disease Therapies

A cross-disciplinary coalition of experts from academic centers across the United States is partnering with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit organizations to identify new targets for therapies for autoimmune-meditated diseases. The program, the Accelerating Medicine Partnership Autoimmune and Immune-Mediated Diseases (AMP AIM), launched in December 2021, is sponsored by NIH and supported by $58 million in public and private funding. The purpose of the initiative, according to NIH, is to “deepen our understanding of the cellular and molecular interactions that lead to inflammation and autoimmune disease.”

AMP AIM is an expansion of a program launched in 2014 that focused on cellular and molecular pathways in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus. The expanded program will investigate psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and Sjögren’s syndrome, in addition to RA and lupus.