Rheumatoid Arthritis

The UPMC Rheumatoid Arthritis Center

UPMC Rheumatoid Arthritis Center physicians are dedicated to providing outstanding care for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and related disorders. Center physicians work collaboratively with a multidisciplinary team that includes specialist nurses, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. Our integrated approach helps RA patients manage their condition while maintaining a good quality of life and maximizing compliance with care instructions.

All of our rheumatologists actively participate in RA-related clinical studies. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) serves as a major source of funding for our studies, both directly and through the Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) initiative, collaboration between the NIH, biopharmaceutical companies, and non-profit organizations. The University of Pittsburgh Rheumatoid Arthritis Center is one of only eight national sites that receive AMP RA funding. Center faculty also regularly partner with private industry to run both industry-initiated and investigator initiated studies. . Click here to view our RA-related clinical trials that are actively enrolling patients.

The University of Pittsburgh Rheumatoid Arthritis Center also contributes significantly to the Rheumatoid Arthritis Comparative Effectiveness Research (RACER) registry. The RACER registry is a collaborative effort between the Univeristy of Pittsburgh and Harvard University and is supported by an NIH RC2 Grand Opportunities (GO) grant and Genentech.  Enrollment into this registry has been highly successful, with data from 4,000 clinic visits collected since 2010. The longitudinal data collected for the RACER study also serves to facilitate patient enrollment into active clinical trials by helping physicians identify patients eligible for clinical and research trials at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC.

The Rheumatoid Arthritis Center is directed by Larry Moreland, MD, with Yong Hwang, MD and Mandy McGeachy, PhD serving as Associate Directors.