NeuroTrauma Sciences Enters Collaboration to Support "CENTER-TBI" Research in Traumatic Brain Injury

ATLANTA, May 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- NeuroTrauma Sciences, LLC (NTS), a private biopharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of disease-modifying therapeutic candidates to treat the devastating effects of acquired brain injury, today announced it has entered into a research collaboration with Antwerp University Hospital, Belgium, to help support "Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in TBI" (CENTER-TBI), a prospective longitudinal observational study that is collecting clinical and epidemiological data to identify the most effective clinical care and treatment recommendations, develop and validate surrogate biomarkers of injury and recovery, and improve the classification of traumatic brain injury (TBI) to enable targeted therapies.

"Despite substantial advances in medical care, the outcome for a patient with a TBI has not changed much over the past 20 years, and for this reason CENTER-TBI was conceived," said Professor Dr. Andrew I.R. Maas, M.D., Ph.D., Em. Professor of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Antwerp, and Principal Investigator, CENTER-TBI. "We anticipated that the project could revolutionize our view of TBI, leading to more effective and efficient therapy, thus improving outcomes and reducing costs." 

Detailed data from over 5,700 patients recruited from across Europe, Israel, India, and Australia have been analyzed during the project, in addition to registry data consisting of in-hospital observations of approximately 41,000 patients from Europe, China, and India.  This provides a unique overview of the scale of the problem of TBI, examines differences in treatments and pinpoints best practices in how TBI is identified and treated.  New technologies such as advanced MR-Imaging were employed and further developed to better understand the condition.

"With this support, NeuroTrauma Sciences will partner with CENTER-TBI in its effort to advance care in TBI," said Carl Long, Chief Executive Officer of NeuroTrauma Sciences. "Access to and insights gleaned from the extensive CENTER-TBI data set will inform NTS's clinical trial planning process and aid in developing therapies for this substantially underserved patient population. We are working to advance our lead compound NTS-104 into the clinic for mild TBI in 2022."

"NeuroTrauma Sciences' support is coming in as our initial funding from the European Commission has been completed.  This funding will ensure that the CENTER-TBI network and infrastructure built over the last 7+ years will remain intact, meta analyses of this extensive database will continue, and we will continue to serve the provider and patient communities and the TBI care pathways," said David K. Menon, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Chairman of CENTER-TBI and Principal Investigator in the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, Co-Chair of the Acute Brain Injury Program, University of Cambridge, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UK.

About Traumatic Brain Injury
Called a "silent epidemic," traumatic brain injury (TBI), resulting from an external physical impact to the head, is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide.  Sixty-nine million individuals worldwide are estimated to sustain a TBI each year, including one out of every 200 Europeans and Americans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the U.S. in 2014 TBI contributed to the deaths of 56,800 people, including 2,529 deaths among children.  The majority of TBIs that occur each year are called mild TBIs, also commonly referred to as concussions. TBIs and concussion have become a key priority for sports organizations at the local and professional levels, including the NFL, NHL and FIFA, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense. In both the U.S. and Europe, there is increasing concern about the socioeconomic, persistent and downstream effects of even a single mild TBI.  Additionally, a TBI may predispose patients to chronic symptoms and deficits and is potentially causative of dementia later in life. 

About CENTER-TBI
CENTER-TBI is a large European project initiated in 2013 that aims to improve the care for patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). It forms part of the larger global initiative InTBIR: International Initiative for Traumatic Brain Injury Research with projects currently ongoing in Europe, the US and Canada. Forty-four scientific institutes and more than 68 hospitals participated in the project, which aimed to gather data on over 4,500 patients in Europe and Israel.

The CENTER-TBI study has been listed in the registry of clinical trials.gov, a service maintained by the US National Institutes of Health (registration number: NCT02210221; https://clinicaltrials.gov).

About NeuroTrauma Sciences
NeuroTrauma Sciences (NTS) is a biopharmaceutical company advancing its mission to develop therapies that address the full complexities of acquired brain injuries including traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke, and other neurologic conditions.  Acquired brain injuries remain areas of high unmet need with limited therapeutic options to alleviate the cognitive, functional, and neurobehavioral effects for the millions of patients, worldwide.  By following the science and leveraging insights into the biology of acquired brain injury, NTS is advancing a pipeline of candidates targeting TBI and stroke.  For additional information, please visit www.neurotraumasciences.com. 

Contacts:

NeuroTrauma Sciences                                                            SMP Communications
John-Claude Saltiel                                                                     Susan Pietropaolo
Vice President of Corporate Development                                  201-923-2049
917-796-7749                                                                              [email protected]
[email protected]

CENTER-TBI
Véronique De Keyser
Logistic Manager & Coordinator CENTER-TBI
Tel + 32 3 821 46 32                                                                                                                                                       [email protected]  

SOURCE NeuroTrauma Sciences, LLC