MND-SMART launches in Southampton
February 2021: A new trial centre has opened to participants in Southampton. This is the trial’s sixth UK centre.
The new MND-SMART trial centre will be based at the University Hospital Southampton (UHS). It will welcome participants to the study from across Southampton and the surrounding areas of the Wessex region.
Dr Ashwin Pinto is the Consultant Neurologist leading the study at the new Centre.
The MND-SMART trial centres already open are in Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow, Salford and Aberdeen.
People with MND who have already registered online interest in the trial and who live in the Southampton and surrounding Wessex region, will be contacted by the trial team over the coming months to discuss taking part.
As a clinician reviewing patients with MND, I am acutely aware of patients’ keen interest to take part in clinical trials that we all hope will lead to significant advances in the treatment of MND. I am delighted that Southampton has been invited to join with the network of centres across the UK to offer local patients with MND the opportunity to join the MND SMART clinical trial
Whilst working to open new sites as quickly as possible, ensuring the safety of people taking part in MND-SMART is the trial teams’ highest priority. The trial sponsor and local research and development teams have carefully reviewed the impact of Covid-19 and have provided clear guidance that recruitment to MND-SMART may continue in line with the ongoing delivery of essential healthcare. The pandemic will however, have an impact on the pace of recruitment to the trial.
MND-SMART is a pioneering clinical trial in its reach and design that launched in January 2020. The trial is recruiting hundreds of people living with MND across the UK to take part in tests of potential treatments.
Unlike typical clinical trials which test a single treatment at a time, MND-SMART is testing multiple drugs and so aims to speed up the time it takes to find medicines that can slow, stop, or reverse the progression of, MND.
The trial has been developed by people with MND and clinical trial experts from across the UK. The study is led by the Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research at the University of Edinburgh.
MND-SMART is funded by the Euan MacDonald Centre, substantial private donations, MND Scotland and the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.