HHTU News Roundup

Recruitment milestone reached

We are thrilled to announce that the MOI-A study has successfully reached its UK recruitment target. A major milestone for this important research programme into a rare disease. This achievement is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the research team here at HHTU, the continued support of our Chief Investigator, Professor Nick Bishop, and the commitment of our recruiting sites. A heartfelt thank you also goes to the participants themselves, whose involvement is helping to advance knowledge and future treatments for people living with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).

The MOI-A (Matrix-Directed Therapy in Older Adolescents and Adults with Osteogenesis Imperfecta) study is being conducted as part of the broader REMEDi4ALL drug repurposing initiative. It is investigating whether the repurposed drug losartan can reduce bone turnover in individuals with OI, a rare inherited condition characterised by bone fragility and associated complications. The trial aims to identify an effective dose of losartan based on its impact on bone resorption markers.

While the UK recruitment target has now been met, recruitment will continue to enable the study to reach its overall aim of 30 participants, in collaboration with our partner sites in Italy.

In addition to this recruitment milestone, the MOI-A study has recently achieved another significant success with its first publication, which can be read here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41360460/

This publication is the protocol paper which details the plan for the study and outlines the methods and analysis. We look forward to reading future MOI-A related publications in the future.

BREEZE-2 recruitment competition

To boost participant enrolment and encourage engagement across all trial locations, a Winter Recruitment Competition was launched on BREEZE 2. Each participating site competed to get the highest recruitment numbers from the 1^st November through to the 19^th December end date. The competition took the form of a sledge race down a snowy hill where each site was represented by sledge, and higher recruiting sites were further down the hill. All sites received regular updates of the leaderboard, with a number of sites recruiting several across one or two days.

The recruitment during the competition was fierce (particularly in November), being amongst the highest recruiting months since recruitment began with a total of 19 participants in the competition bringing the total recruitment for BREEZE 2 to 68 participants. After a close race, the winning sites (Great Yarmouth, Devon and Hull) all recruited 3 participants each and got a hamper of confectionary just in time for Christmas.