Developments to the ECRAID-Prime consortium
The ECRAID-Prime consortium starts the new year by officially welcoming Ecraid and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) as its newest partners to the project. The announcement follows the European Commission’s approval of the consortium’s grant amendment request, which was submitted in Q4 2022.
ECRAID-Prime project lead Chris Butler says, “We are thrilled to welcome Ecraid and the NIPH to our consortium. Their unique skills and experience will greatly enhance our efforts in implementing Europe’s first platform trial in primary care and coordinating COVID-19 Adaptive Platform Trials in Europe. With Ecraid's organisational capabilities in implementing platform trials, and the NIPH's expertise in compound evaluation, we are confident that together we will achieve greater synergies and efficiencies to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Inclusion of COVID-like-illness
Initially, the aim of the ECRAID-Prime trial was to conduct early phase studies on safety and efficacy of exciting candidate treatments for COVID-19. The grant amendment update has extended this to include COVID-like-illness. This means that the trial will be able to test compounds which have a broad activity towards other viral and possibly bacterial respiratory pathogens, such as the influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, rhinovirus as well as other coronaviruses.
Project co-coordinator and trial lead, Alike van der Velden says, “The first compounds that passed the JAAM evaluation for ECRAID-Prime show promise for broad-spectrum antiviral activity. With the threat of multiple respiratory viruses co-circulating, early treatment of patients in the community with safe and affordable medication can significantly reduce the duration and severity of respiratory illness and the risks of viral transmission, hospitalisation, and longer-term consequences. This approach eliminates the need for prior testing to determine the disease cause and revolutionises the way we manage respiratory illness in the community”.
