Member Spotlight: Food Allergy Research & Education

By Kelly Garrity, Senior Director, Member Services and Development

The following is one of a series of posts highlighting National Health Council members. If you are interested in learning more about NHC membership, please email me.

In 2012, Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) was formed as the result of a merger between the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) and the Food Allergy Initiative (FAI). Today, FARE is the leading national organization working on behalf of the 15 million Americans with food allergy, including all those at risk for life-threatening anaphylaxis.

FARE is a new NHC member, joining in 2018, because with two first-in-class therapies for food allergy expecting US Food and Drug Administration decisions in 2019, FARE is focused on raising awareness of food allergies across the health care system and advocating for regulatory and reimbursement policies that will advance access to care for each of the 15 million Americans with food allergies.

Through support for academic and industry research, FARE promotes the development of new therapies and offers hope for effective treatments. FARE’s primary goals are to accelerate the development of safe, practical therapies that would protect individuals with food allergies against life-threatening anaphylaxis; to develop a deep understanding of the disease; and ultimately, to find a cure. FARE is currently the world’s largest private source of food allergy research funding.

Innovative Programs

The FARE Clinical Network is a bold initiative that aims to accelerate the development of drugs for patients with food allergies as well as improve the quality of care for this serious illness. The FARE Clinical Network, which now comprises over 30 centers of excellence across the country, brings members together for a common goal of ensuring that patients with food allergies have access to state-of-the-art diagnosis, care, research, and clinical trials.

The FARE Clinical Network is a powerful driver of collaboration to advance the field of food allergy. Under FARE’s leadership and coordination, the centers of excellence selected to participate in this nationwide network:

• develop best practices for the care of patients with food allergies,
• serve as sites for clinical trials for the development of new therapeutics, and
• contribute to the development of the FARE Patient Registry and food allergy biorepositories.

The FARE Clinical Network will continue to add new members and commit additional investments to provide access to more patients.

In addition, FARE has launched the FARE Clinical Trial Finder, which simplifies the search for clinical trials that are critical to the discovery of new therapies for food allergy, a potentially life-threatening disease. As a new tool linking volunteers and researchers, the FARE Clinical Trial Finder builds on the work of the FARE Patient Registry, whose members can track their food allergy reactions and anonymously share their clinical data with the research community. In just one year, the FARE Patient Registry has enrolled more than 5,000 food allergy patients.

For more information on FARE and their work, please contact Jon Hoffman.