The long-term impact of non-response to small molecule drugs and biological therapies in inflammatory bowel disease

Study code
DAA174

Lead researcher
Dr Gordon Moran

Study type
Data only

Institution or company
University of Nottingham

Researcher type
Academic

Speciality area
Gastroenterology

Summary

Plain language summary

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are inflammatory bowel diseases that lead to symptoms of diarrhoea, bleeding and abdominal pain. Specialised treatments like biological drugs which are antibody treatments are available for the treatment of inflammatory Bowel Disease. We think that treating patients until they reach remission is most important as this is linked with best patient-related outcome.


This study is looking to compare the typical outcomes of patients, such as hospitalisation or surgery, who responded to the first biologic they had compared to those who have had a number of biologics because they didn’t respond. We hope that doing this study will provide evidence of the importance of identifying the most beneficial drug for a patient as early as possible. We will be requesting data relevant to patient age, gender and ethnicity, the level of complexity of their inflammatory bowel disease and the different treatments they had.

Potential for patient benefit

By understanding the impact of non-response to biologic treatments in patients we will be able to provide evidence as to the importance of identifying effective treatments as early as possible, and help define at the onset what specific drug is best needed. Having this evidence will be important for taking forward research about how to identify treatments. Ultimately this work seeks to improve the quality of life of patients by reducing the likelihood of negative outcomes occurring as a result of ineffective treatments.