Dr Su Lwin of King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has secured multi-million-pound funding from LifeArc and DEBRA UK to lead a five-year clinical trial aimed at repurposing existing drugs to treat epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a rare and painful genetic skin condition with no cure.
The Advancing Repurposed Therapeutics (ART) EB trial will test whether drugs already used for common inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis and eczema can help EB patients. The trial is based on growing evidence that inflammation, driven by immune signals called cytokines, worsens EB symptoms such as pain, scarring, and infection.
In its first phase, the study will use immune profiling to identify different inflammatory patterns in people with EB. Patients will then be matched to the drug most likely to work for their specific immune profile. Using a novel multi-arm, multi-stage trial design, up to three drugs will be tested simultaneously, with ineffective treatments dropped and replaced as the trial progresses.
Adult patients will be recruited from EB centres across the UK. Immune profiling is expected to begin in 2026, with drug testing starting in 2027. The project is seen as a major step forward for EB research, offering a faster, more flexible pathway to effective treatments and improved quality of life for people living with EB.
“My work aims to bridge the gap between rare and common skin diseases. By repurposing existing drugs that are already licensed for use for other conditions, we can accelerate therapeutic innovation and hopefully bring much-needed treatments to the people who need them sooner”.
Dr Su Lwin, Senior Research Fellow at King’s and Consultant Dermatologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’
Credit: Kings College London