The FDA unveiled on Dec. 5 a new online database in which healthcare professionals can share with one another their novel uses of existing FDA-approved medications to treat infectious diseases.
CURE ID can be accessed via internet browser, smartphone or other mobile device. The crowdsourcing app is a collaboration between the FDA and the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, with a goal of not only enabling clinicians to administer potentially life-saving interventions, but also accelerating the development of new treatments for difficult-to-treat infectious diseases.
"When healthcare professionals directly input their clinical cases into the app, CURE ID allows these real-world experiences to be organized and analyzed much faster, making it easier to spot promising new uses for existing drugs," Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD, the FDA's principal deputy commissioner, said in a statement. "Our hope is that this app will serve as a connector among major treatment centers, academics, private practitioners, government facilities and other healthcare professionals from around the world and ultimately get treatments to patients faster."
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