More than 1.5 million Dutch people suffer from osteoarthritis – a rheumatic disease of the joints that causes pain, stiffness and difficulty in moving. Since osteoarthritis is a condition that mainly occurs to elderly people, the number of patients will increase due to aging of the population. Currently there is no adequate treatment. The OAinject program is developing new diagnostic tools to determine the exact type of osteoarthritis someone has, in order to enable tailor-made treatments. In addition, the researchers are working on innovative ways to administer medicines in the joints over a longer period of time, gradually, as well as locally via a depot. In this way, the consortium wants to ensure that rheumatic patients can maintain an active lifestyle that helps prevent other conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and dementia.

QVQ contributes in this project with developing single domain antibody for osteoarthritis research.