Today’s guidelines by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to widen access to anti-TNF drugs for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis has been widely welcomed by patient groups and medical research charities such as Arthritis Research UK.

Those digging further into the story may be interested to know that it was researchers funded by Arthritis Research UK who pioneered development of anti-TNF therapy.   The full story of the charity’s role in the original breakthrough in the 1990s can be found in our booklet ‘A Very Public Benefit’ and on the associated website which you can either access via the ‘Are you a Patient?’ button above or here.

Ant-TNF is one of the most celebrated examples of how charities have funded research of patient benefit and rightly so.