SCTC White Paper Initiative

This project, supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium (SCTC), is bringing together leading researchers in scleroderma (systemic sclerosis), patients with scleroderma, representatives of the biopharmaceutical industry, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) personnel to determine what methods to measure various aspects of disease in scleroderma (outcome measures) are valid enough to be used in clinical trials that will lead to approval by the FDA of new treatments for scleroderma. The final product will be a “White Paper” which is a detailed publication put together by the large group of investigators. This work will help advance the study of scleroderma and help accelerate new research to find new treatments for this complex disease.

The SCTC White Paper Initiative does not involve recruitment of patients or any treatments.

Role of Penn Scleroderma Center faculty in this project: Dr. Peter Merkel is one of the two Principal Investigators (leaders) of this international project that are directing all aspects of the work.