HALo - UK Hub for Advanced Long-acting Therapeutics
HALo is the UK Hub for Advanced Long-acting Therapeutics funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). HALo is a national Hub hosted under CELT Global Health with four co-founding academic partners.
Background
In general, the most common medicines used to treat acute and chronic healthcare conditions are based on doses taken daily or several times per day. Treatments for high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, and depression, are all based on daily administration, delivered via tablets, liquid medicines, or inhalers.
Unfortunately, many medicines fail to deliver their intended benefits due to missed doses and many prescribed medicines are not fully utilised and ultimately thrown away. Missed doses create a range of additional complications, from a lack of efficacy, through to the development of pathogen resistance. These complications can negatively impact individual patients, in some cases leading to their death, and have the potential to negatively impact whole populations.
There is a proven alternative approach, called long-acting therapeutics, which deploys drugs in a different way. This is the basis for the CELT Global Health. In summary, a single administered dose may be developed to safely deliver the
appropriate level of drug over very extended periods of time from weeks to months.
These approaches have been highly successful in the management of HIV and mental health disorders and CELT Global Health has been created to enable long-acting therapeutic development and deployment. The scope for long-acting therapeutics is considerable, and many diseases have no long-acting option. Global health efforts are targeting many of these opportunities to ensure options exist for patients around the world and across multiple healthcare needs.
Market research has consistently shown a high degree of patient enthusiasm for long-acting therapeutics. For doctors, this approach can greatly simplify the way they administer drugs, improve clinical outcomes, reduce environmental exposure, and reduce the costs of healthcare provision.
HALo funder
HALo is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
