WSU site of new type 2 diabetes clinical trial

SPOKANE, Wash. – The Washington State University health sciences campus in Spokane will be one of the sites for a new national clinical trial studying medications for the treatment of type 2 diabetes that is scheduled to begin next fall.

 

Joshua J. Neumiller

Supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the trial will compare the effectiveness of several approaches to managing medications in people with early type 2 diabetes, according to Joshua J. Neumiller, a College of Pharmacy faculty member and one of two lead researchers on the project.

 

“There are an expanding number of medications available for the treatment of type 2 diabetes,” Neumiller said. “This trial aims to collect evidence to guide clinical decision making and optimize outcomes in the treatment of people with type 2 diabetes.”

 

The WSU researchers will be enrolling 50 patients per year over the first three years of the study, for a total of 150 participants. It will be the largest trial handled so far by the college’s Clinical Trials Research Team, Neumiller said. The trial is anticipated to run for eight years.

 

Carol Wysham

Neumiller and Carol Wysham, an adjunct faculty member in the College of Pharmacy and a Spokane endocrinologist, are sharing the job of lead investigators for the research project.  It will require the WSU team to add two or three clinical staff to its unit for the duration of the project. The team has six other trials currently under way.

George Washington University in Washington, D.C., is the coordinating site for the multicenter study, and Neumiller and Wysham will serve on the steering committee overseeing the project. Approximately $2.5 million in research support will be provided to WSU by the NIH in support of the trial.