The International Progressive MS Alliance announces the launch of its MS Clinical and Imaging Data Resource (CIDR), which provides the academic and research community access to anonymized and harmonized MRI and clinical data from thousands of people living with MS who participated in one of many clinical trials. The Alliance, in conjunction with McGill University in Montréal, Canada, and four industry partners – Biogen, Novartis, Roche and Sanofi - is making this resource available exclusively to the MS research community to help accelerate the understanding of MS progression and speed up clinical trials aiming to find solutions for progressive MS.
The resource has an estimated total value of more than €685 million and is composed of anonymized data collected through pharmaceutical industry clinical trials. Included in the resource are approximately 72,000 MRI scans, as well as data from 200,000 clinical visits from more than 13,500 people with MS.
The resource was developed as a result of the International Progressive MS Alliance's MRI Imaging Biomarker International Collaborative Research Network, led by Prof. Douglas Arnold at McGill University. The team was supported to assimilate a clinical and MRI database and then develop algorithms that can predict how MS will progress and how patients might respond to treatment. Their research is based on the idea that computing tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) can detect signs of MS progression earlier than clinicians can. By using advanced computing tools, investigators aim to predict whether treatments can slow brain damage resulting from MS, addressing a major barrier in current treatment development.
Applications to access the data will be open to investigators in fall 2025.
Advancing progressive MS research
Today, most MS treatments are approved for only relapsing forms of MS, leaving treatments for progressive MS a significant unmet need. The Clinical and Imaging Data Resource was created to advance the Alliance's mission to accelerate studies aiming to uncover the mechanisms driving progression and speed the development of treatments for progressive MS.
To access the data, applicants will be required to submit an application describing their proposed work, which is required to be focused on understanding MS progression. In-scope proposed work includes natural history modeling, simulation studies, the generation of new outcome measures and/or studying demographic, clinical imaging, and fluid biomarkers and their relationships with outcomes.
The Alliance has convened a review committee, including a person living with progressive MS, to evaluate all applications and ensure proposals support research that is beneficial to the progressive MS community.
Harmonized data will allow for analysis that speeds clinical trials
The data available within the resource was collected using diverse methods and donated by four pharmaceutical companies. All data have been harmonized, making it easier to analyze using state-of-the-art tools such as AI and machine learning, with the goal of finding patterns that humans may not have seen or considered.
There are currently no fully validated biomarkers to predict disease progression in progressive MS. This is a hurdle because large phase III trials might cost up to hundreds of millions of dollars each, so if they don't work, it's a big loss for the company and society."
Prof. Douglas Arnold, McGill University
"AI tools, however, can help us find clues that are predictive of success, meaning investigators could conduct smaller trials enriched with patients who are more likely to respond to a treatment," Arnold said. "Then, enrollment could expand to general patients, and we can see how well the treatment holds up."
"Ideally, the new AI-based tools and other statistical methods should optimize trials, so they'll be shorter, more efficient and hopefully more successful," he says.
Collaboration speeds progress
"This unique resource underscores the power of the Alliance and its role in bringing together industry and academia around the world to contribute to and offer this valuable tool," said Dr. Robert Fox, Chair of the Alliance's Scientific Steering Committee and MS neurologist at the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis, Cleveland Clinic. "Most importantly, we are grateful for the thousands of people with MS who participated in these trials so that we can have this data to offer to those working to solve progressive MS."
The pharmaceutical companies involved were critically important in their willingness to contribute to this resource. They plan to continue contributing new data over time. The Alliance will continue to engage additional partners to add data to further increase the size and breadth of the data resource.
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