Deep Breath is the official newsletter of the UKs Refactory Asthma Stratification Programme and you can read our first issue here [1].

Our consortium of research, academic and industry parties are focused on finding new treatment paradigms for asthma. We see the future of severe asthma management involving treatment optimisation to individual patients fully utilising currently available treatments more efficiently, particularly with corticosteroids by defining an ‘optimised’ dose, allied with the use of ‘add-on’ target-specific novel treatments. At present there seems to a “tsunami” of novel treatments aimed at targeting Type-2 cytokine mediated inflammation approaching introduction in the clinic. Understanding where these new treatments will fit into the current management is likely to define our therapeutic journey in the coming years. This new ‘era’ and our collaborative efforts in this UK clinical research programme will hopefully deliver better management for our patients as well as contribute to the identification of novel targets in this exciting era of stratified medicines in severe asthma.

This newsletter gives a description of the various different work strands on the initiative and their objectives, introduces key team members and provides an update on the progress being made by each of the different aspects of the project. There is a brief report on the first RASP-UK General Assembly Meetng held on 1st December 2015 at One Drummond Gate, Victoria, London. This was the first time all consortium leaders and key members of their teams had gathered in one place and it was a great opportunity for the consortium to share their experience, cement relationships that will foster collaboration and receive updates from the leadership team relating to the RASP-UK programme. One of the key objectives of the bringing the teams together was to introduce the multidisciplinary teams to the concept of achieving project legacy through a strategically targeted process of publication planning and communications designed to win share of voice in the rapidly developing field of asthma treatment. Further information can be found on the consortium website [2].

References

1. RASP-UK consortium newsletter #1
2. www.rasp.org.uk