Saturday, December 5th: 1:30 – 3:30 pm, 4:00 – 6:00 pm, and 6:30 – 8:30 pm
A series of three consecutive sessions will be conducted on the critically important topic of atherosclerosis. We are constantly refining our understanding of the mechanisms and progression of atherosclerosis, and its treatment, and this series aims to define the current state-of-the-art. What have we learned from trials to date, and where should we go next?
The first session, “Traditional Targets and Innovative Approaches” will be chaired by Prof. Wolfgang Koenig, an interventional cardiologist specializing in intensive care medicine at the University of Ulm Medical School in Munich Germany, and Dr. Paul Ridker, Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, USA.
This session will focus on nucleic-acid-based therapies for CV disease, in particular RNA interference and inclisiran, and where it fits with PCSK9 antibodies, bempedoic acid, and statins. We will also look at the evidence for fish oil, including long-chain omega-3 fatty acids are eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in light of the REDUCE-IT and STRENGTH trials. Find out more about dalcetrapib and the Dal-GenE trial.
Speakers include a star-studded class of cardiologists: Ulf Landmesser (Berlin, GER), Judy Lieberman (Boston, USA), Kausik Ray (London, GBR), David Preiss (Oxford, GBR), Wolfgang Koenig (Munich, GER), Deepak Bhatt (Boston, USA), Steven Nissen (Cleveland, USA), Jean-Claude Tardif (Montreal, CAN), Peter Libby (Boston, USA), and Erin Michos (Baltimore, USA). The moderated, multi-stakeholder, expert panel debate after the first session will focus on “Understanding and Interpreting Atherosclerosis Trials”.
The second session, “How Clinical Trials Help Progress THE Inflammation Hypothesis in CVD” will be chaired by Dr. Peter Libby and Dr. Jean Claude Tardif. Dr. Libby from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, USA, helped to lead the large scale Canakinumab Anti-Inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Trial (CANTOS), which provided the first clinical validation of the role of inflammation in atherosclerosis. Dr. Tardif, holds the Canada Research Chair in Translational and Personalized Medicine, and is the Director of the Research Centre at the Montreal Heart Institute in Montreal, QC, Canada.
As the session name suggests, this forum will focus on inflammation bio-targets for current and future atherosclerosis and CVD clinical trials, and what we have learned from trials to date, including: CANTOS, CIRT, COLCOT, LoDoCo2, and RESCUE. We will discuss the future for trials in this area, including the potential to target inflammation in heart failure. Additional speakers joining the co-chairs are Jan H. Cornel (Nijmegen, NED), Paul Ridker (Boston, USA), Douglas Mann (Saint Louis, USA), and Jan Tijssen (Nijmegen, NED). Florian Baeres (NovoNordisk, USA), and Thomas Thuren (Novartis, USA) will provide unique perspective from the pharmaceutical industry. The expert panel debate after the this session will focus on “Design Issues in CVD Inflammation Clinical Trials”.
The third session, “Approval, Implementation and Reimbursement Challenges” will be chaired by Prof. David Preiss, from the MRC Population Health Research, Clinical Trial Service at the University of Oxford in England, and Dr. Tardif who will stay on as co-chair after chairing the second session. This session will focus on how we can make new therapies accessible to our patients, with viewpoints from industry (Michael Davidson (Corvidia, USA), Craig Granowitz (Amarin, USA), Sandra Silvestri (Sanofi, FRA), Tom Thuren (Novartis, USA)), regulatory (Lisa Yanoff (FDA, USA), and Krishna Prasad (EMA, GBR)), patients (Marietta Verbakel (Nijmegen, NED), and Wanda F Moore (Arizona, USA)) and payers.
If atherosclerosis is your research interest, the live forum debate is your chance to learn more about the future of clinical trials in this area, and to network with a diverse multi-stakeholder panel.