Biopharmaceutical company Incyte has opened submissions for its newly launched award programme aiming to support people living with graft-versus-host disease.
The annual programme – named the Incyte Ingenuity Award – will support not only people with GVHD, but also their caregivers and physicians, by encouraging novel solutions for challenges the community currently faces.
The award will fund one innovative programme, idea or initiative each year which promotes collaboration within the GVHD community to address a specific unmet need.
Submissions can come from non-profit, patient, policy and caregiver organisations, as well as healthcare providers and mid-level/junior faculty from healthcare organisations.
The submissions will be reviewed and evaluated by an individual judging panel, consisting of Gerry Cowden, founder, Meredith Cowden Foundation; Shrina Duggal, clinical pharmacy specialist; and Navneet Majhail, director, Blood and Marrow Transplant Programme, Cleveland Clinic.
“At Incyte, we wanted to create a community-driven programme dedicated to improving the lives of patients with a serious disease, such as GVHD, which can be difficult to treat and have a devastating impact on the lives of patients,” said Barry Flannelly, executive vice president and general manager, US, Incyte.
“Through the Incyte Ingenuity Award, we hope to spark creativity and innovation, which we expect to result in impactful and actionable solutions for the GVHD community,” he added.
GVHD is a condition that can occur after an allogeneic transplant, wherein the donated cells – often donated marrow or stem cells – react with a person’s normal cells, causing a range of symptoms. This includes diarrhoea, skin rashes and liver damage.
The reaction occurs when T cells in the donated bone marrow/stem cells attack the body’s own cells, because the donated cells see the host cells as foreign and attack them.
A number of drug developers and pharma companies are aiming to develop therapeutics for this sometimes fatal condition.
That includes Incyte, which has a JAK 1/2 inhibitor – Jakafi – on the market as a treatment for acute GVHD, for adults and children 12 years of age and older whose disease had not improved after taking corticosteroids.
Other developers are aiming to produce therapies which avoid the causes of GVHD – that includes bluebird bio, whose beta thalassaemia treatment Zynteglo/LentiGlobin is designed to avoid the complications of GVHD with a one-time gene transfer that could replace the need for monthly transfusions.