The use of opioid agents has increased dramatically in the United States. Prescription drug overdoses now account for more deaths than traumatic injuries in the 1-44 age group. There is a need for more high level evidence to target optimal pain management strategies in the acute (ED) and non-acute settings (office practice) especially for chronic disorders such as low back pain, headaches, fibromyalgia, acupuncture etc. ...more »

A way for clinical trial investigators to submit ONE application with ONE review and ONE funding decision, and the application would ask for funding from multiple funders (e.g. NHLBI and another IC, NHLBI and PCORI, NHLBI and AHA, NHLBI and CIHR, NHLBI and MRC).

Is an increase in macrovascular endpoints outweighed by the benefit in microvascular end points in new oral type 2 diabetes drugs?

It would go against the current regulatory paradigm in type 2 diabetes. Although drug companies do not like the current paradigm, they would prefer to go back to the pre-rosiglitazone state of affairs, in which new drugs had only to prove that they lowered blood glucose and HbA1c.

Prevention trials, implemented to reduce or delay progression to overt disease in a population at risk to the disease, are an important approach to health promotion. Therapies shown to reduce disease severity in patients with a specific disease are obvious, but not the only, candidates for a prevention trial in populations at high risk for prevalent diseases (such as heart failure, diabetes, COPD, asthma in children). ...more »

What are the metrics that can predict success of clinical trials?

Clinical trials are at a crossroads. They are too expensive, take too long, and often can't recruit adequately. A critical challenge is to develop tools that can change the cost, time, and recruiting practices for clinical trials.

1) Phase III efficacy trials of new tuberculosis drugs (e.g., bedaquiline, delamanid, PA-824) that have shown promise in early phase studies for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. 2) Phase III efficacy trials of new and existing tuberculosis drugs to development very short course regimens (3-4 months). 3) Phase III efficacy trials of new and existing drugs for treatment of latent tuberculosis infection in contacts of ...more »

As the current chair of the Research and Training Division, I would like to convey that the AAAAI membership would like the NHLBI to consider the following in the development of its strategic plan: Asthma appears to be due to heterogenous etiologies.  To better characterize the various phenotypes and potential etiologies, it would be important to create more epidemiologic and biomarker focused databases, which could ...more »

Continued and expanded support for the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSN) and Pediatric Heart Network (PHN) is essential as both design, conduct, and analyze multiple, collaborative clinical trials that evaluate surgical interventions, and related management approaches for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. To date both networks have reported on and developed a portfolio of studies which need continued ...more »

Clinical research, especially randomized pharmaceutical clinical trials, poses many unique challenges compared to research in adult subjects. In pulmonary arterial hypertension, a disease characterized by high blood pressure of the lungs with increased pulmonary vascular resistance leading to right ventricular failure, there are 12 FDA-approved PAH-targeted therapies for adults. None of these medications are currently ...more »

Pragmatic and adequately powered clinical trials are an ongoing challenge.

­Develop new tools to facilitate identification and recruitment of subjects, remote/wireless data collection, and functional measures.

The initiation of clinical trials remains difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Repetitive institutional review board oversight is one of several obstacles to efficient clinical trial initiation and completion. New strategies for addressing duplicative regulatory standards are necessary to ease the initiation and completion of trials.

During this period of diminishing Federal resources and funding, what novel methods can be employed to effectively conduct clinical trials that address existing and emerging medical and public health issues?

As the current chair of the Research and Training Division, I would like to convey that the AAAAI membership would like the NHLBI to consider the following in the development of its strategic plan:

Are the current methodologies for clinical trials still the best practices for conducting efficient clinical trials?

Infrastructure for performing research in rare diseases should be enhanced to allow efficient accrual to multicenter trials.