AMP Schizophrenia

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AMP Schizophrenia

Our mission is to improve treatments for patients by identifying early indicators of schizophrenia.

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership® (AMP®) Program Schizophrenia (AMP SCZ) is the first neuropsychiatric project of the landmark AMP program, managed by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. This major public-private partnership between NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and private partner organizations from the industry and nonprofit sectors addresses the critical need for more effective treatments for individuals with schizophrenia and related mental health conditions. The project harnesses the combined capabilities of its public and private partners to develop early interventions for individuals experiencing mental illnesses in the psychosis spectrum domain and to improve their quality of life by reducing symptom burden.

AMP SCZ aims to develop tools to define early risk stages better and predict the likelihood of progression to psychosis and other undesired outcomes such as anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders. Such tools will help identify novel drug targets and enable clinical trials to test new pharmacologic interventions that may prevent or delay the onset of psychosis in at-risk patients.

Goals

Validate biomarkers needed to identify clinical high-risk (CHR) individuals, predict the likelihood of progression to psychosis and other outcomes, and pinpoint metrics that can be used to assess early signs of treatment efficacy.
Establish a research network with U.S. and international sites focused on CHR populations, making research results more applicable to clinical trials globally.
Enable the identification of CHR individuals for inclusion in clinical trials.
Create a research framework that lays a foundation for future development of faster, more robust interventions.
Disseminate research data to the broader scientific community through the NIMH Data Archive platform, allowing faster translation of findings into solutions.

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Leading Cause of Disability

Schizophrenia is one of the top 15 leading causes of disability, affecting approximately 20 million people worldwide. It is one of the most recognized yet least-understood brain disorders. People with schizophrenia often exhibit widely different symptoms that may present or subside along different timelines. Schizophrenia is often associated with distortions in thinking and behavior, including delusions and hallucinations. Less recognized, however, are persistent cognitive symptoms – such as social withdrawal and diminished emotional expression – that profoundly affect patients’ ability to function across many domains of life.

Accelerating New Therapies

Improving researchers’ and clinicians’ understanding of this complex disorder is critical to developing new treatments. Although much is known about risk factors for schizophrenia, including genetic links and differences in brain structure and function, more tools (e.g., biomarkers and risk calculators) are needed to identify CHR individuals and further differentiate subcategories of risk with increased accuracy and sensitivity. AMP SCZ will focus on those priority areas to refine and improve the success of clinical trials, enable better evaluations of treatment efficacy, and support early detection of risk and, thus, early intervention, all of which are key to improving patient outcomes.

Partners

Private Sector Partners

Public Sector Partners

NAMI was founded by parents of adult children with schizophrenia over 40 years ago. We’re proud to be a part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership for Schizophrenia, a watershed moment in our field. This partnership is a new opportunity for coordinated research on the root causes and progression of schizophrenia, a complex, long-term medical illness.

-Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

Collaboration is a vital element to driving innovation in treatment approaches for these complex diseases of the brain. We believe by being a partner of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership for Schizophrenia along with the FNIH, the NIH and other industry leaders, we will accelerate research and bring potential new treatment options to this patient population so greatly in need of more options.

-Dr. Vikas Mohan Sharma, Head of Medicine, CNS, Retinopathies & Emerging Areas, Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany

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Data Portals

AMP SCZ Data Repository

A critical component of AMP SCZ is rapidly disseminating research data to the scientific community using the NIMH Data Archive (NDA) platform, allowing faster translation of findings into key tools and therapies. The NDA, which will provide cloud-based infrastructure to facilitate the storage and analysis of AMP SCZ data, currently holds raw and processed data collected from approximately 500,000 research participants, including clinical, biological, genetic, and outcome measures.

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