MRC/ABPI COPD Consortium Work Package 1: COPD Phenotyping

COPD patients often respond very differently to the same drug, and many promising treatments fail in human trials because they were tested on the wrong group of people. This matters because the pharmaceutical industry has struggled to bring new COPD treatments to market. The core problem is that COPD—formerly called chronic bronchitis and emphysema—is not a single disease. Patients vary widely in how their lungs deteriorate and which symptoms dominate. Without knowing which patient subgroup a drug targets, clinical trials become a gamble. This project aims to identify biological markers in blood and sputum that distinguish these subgroups, linking specific disease patterns to specific drug responses. If successful, this work could change how clinical trials are designed. Instead of testing a drug on a broad, mixed group of COPD patients—where it may appear ineffective—researchers could recruit only those whose biomarker profile matches the drug’s mechanism. This would reduce the number of failed late-stage trials, speed up the approval of effective treatments, and give clinicians a practical tool for matching existing therapies to the patients most likely to benefit. The result would be fewer patients receiving drugs that do not work for them, and a more efficient pipeline for new COPD medicines.