KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ — A new national
initiative, the Pediatric Trials Network (PTN), was created this
week with a $95 million grant supported by the National Institutes
of Health (NIH).  The PTN will be led through collaboration
between the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and several of the
country’s preeminent pediatric medical centers, including
Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics.  

Gregory
L. Kearns, PharmD, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Medical
Research at Children’s Mercy, will serve as a co-principal
investigator for the PTN along with Daniel Benjamin, Jr., MD, PhD
of Duke University, and will direct the clinical pharmacology
initiatives.  

“Over the past decade and a half, research completed by the
pediatric clinical pharmacology program at Children’s Mercy has
provided firm proof-of-concept that the best of science and
technology can be incorporated into the design of necessary
clinical trials of medications in children,” explained Dr. Kearns.
“These accomplishments have provided a cornerstone which in large
measure has enabled the birth of the new Pediatric Trial
Network.”

The vast majority of drugs approved for the treatment of
children have not been tested in children, and less than 20 percent
of these drugs are labeled for pediatric use. The PTN will use data
collected to help inform pediatric drug labeling, providing
valuable new information about medical treatments of children to
regulators and pediatricians.

Over the next seven years, it is projected that the PTN will
focus on the study of therapeutic drugs identified by NICHD through
its “Best Pharmaceuticals for Children” initiative as being
priority compounds for pediatric use. This will include the
research of medical devices and drugs for cardiovascular diseases,
cancer, infectious diseases

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