Kicking off on January 17th 2019 with a high-level meeting in Brussels, PREPARE and COMBACTE will commence the development of the business plan for ECRAID, the European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases. ECRAID envisages a European-wide sustainable clinical research organization for infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance that stems from both PREPARE and COMBACTE.
The Kick-off Meeting will be opened with prominent speakers such as Marc Bonten, Coordinator of COMBACTE; Herman Goossens, Coordinator of PREPARE; Carlos Moedas, the EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation; Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome Trust; and Magda Chlebus, Executive Director, Science Policy & Regulatory Affairs, EFPIA. In addition, there will be panel discussions with the participation of clinical research networks, such as African EDCTP-funded and Latin-America EU-funded organizations, preclinical research networks, SMEs, and pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies.
ECRAID’s vision is to establish a coordinated and permanent European clinical research infrastructure for clinical research on infectious diseases. Due to their network, which is built on the foundations laid by COMBACTE (>950 clinical care sites) and PREPARE (primary care sites), ECRAID will be able to conduct clinical research faster and easier. Moreover, ECRAID will have rapid access to and knowledge of well-developed clinical and laboratory sites. Trials will be conducted continuously, allowing them to expand their experience and knowledge.
ECRAID will conduct perpetual observational studies, warm-base trials, and adaptive platform trials. For the perpetual observational studies, a selection of sites will continuously enroll patients and collect outcomes for specific infectious diseases or infectious disease syndromes. The warm-base trials are a master study protocol for diagnosing and treating patients in a specific perpetual observational study to evaluate multiple new drugs for infectious diseases. The adaptive platform trials allow the study of multiple therapies, with therapies entering and leaving the platform based on a decision algorithm.
ECRAID aims to protect public health by generating rigorous evidence to improve diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. The mission is to cultivate world-class research to protect citizens of Europe against antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases over the long-term.