Ecraid begins its fight against infectious diseases

Utrecht, Tuesday 15 February 2022 – In January 2022 Ecraid became a legal entity and is now fully operational to advance knowledge in the field of infectious diseases. This is Ecraid’s initial step as it evolves into a self-sustaining, not-for-profit organisation conducting clinical research for both public and private sponsors.

The expertise required to clinically evaluate new diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and other preventive and/or therapeutic interventions is not confined to a single institute or country. In fact, a lack of international collaboration and solidarity leads to fragmentation and isolation of research efforts, inefficient use of scarce research resources and suboptimal impact on the combat of infectious diseases. Ecraid will remedy this issue.

Thanks to funding by the European Commission and the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) in recent years, the Ecraid network is able to conduct clinical research in reduced time, for reduced cost and of high quality. Ecraid’s clinical research network encompasses more than 2,000 sites in 40+ European countries. It includes primary care settings (general practitioners), hospital settings (emergency rooms and intensive care units), paediatric care settings, clinical laboratories, and long-term care facilities.

"This is a historic opportunity to amplify the public and private resources already invested in Europe to build sustainable clinical trial networks. Ecraid will enhance the effectiveness of clinical trials to scientifically demonstrate the optimal care for patients with infections, either caused by emerging pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2 or microorganisms no longer susceptible to current treatment, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria" says Marc Bonten, CEO of Ecraid and Professor of Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands.

The network will provide an efficient European infrastructure capable of performing all aspects of clinical studies from design to dissemination. It will function as the backbone of clinical research activity in the field of infectious diseases led by world-leading experts. Key design principles built into the network’s organisation and operations will ensure the delivery of rapid and coordinated research responses to public health emergencies that represent an imminent or immediate threat to the health and security of people living in Europe.

Ecraid is the envisaged, long-term successor of the European-funded projects COMBACTE and PREPARE. Over the next five years, ECRAID-Base will continue to develop Ecraid into a sustainable not-for-profit clinical research network.

COMBACTE (Combatting Bacterial Resistance in Europe) is part of the IMI-funded programme ND4BB (New Drugs for Bad Bugs) and focuses on improving the clinical development of antibiotics.

COMBACTE-NET, COMBACTE-CARE, and COMBACTE-MAGNET receive support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n° 115523 | 115620 | 115737 resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies in kind contribution. COMBACTE-CDI receives support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement n° 777362 resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and EFPIA.

PREPARE (the Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-)emerging Epidemics) is a large scale European network, including 27 beneficiaries and is funded by the EU FP7 Programme. PREPARE started its activities in February 2014. PREPARE was funded by the European Commission's 7th framework programme under grant agreement No 602525.

ECRAID-Base has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 965313.

Contact for queries: Marc Bonten, CEO of Ecraid: M.J.M.Bonten@umcutrecht.nl