ECRAID-Prime meets with Primary Care network representatives
The ECRAID-Prime consortium recently organised two information sessions, bringing together representatives from seven national coordinating teams within its primary care network. The purpose of these virtual gatherings was to introduce our attendees to the ECRAID-Prime operations team and provide them with a comprehensive update on the forthcoming trial.
Alike van der Velden, the project’s coordinating principal investigator, had the pleasure of introducing the highly experienced Ecraid trial operations team, which is led by Ilse Rietveld and Jeri Nijland. Together, they have over 20 years of experience in orchestrating clinical trials, including those involving general practitioner trials and investigational medicinal products.
In the coming weeks, the project managers will be in touch with the individual national coordinating teams to discuss country-specific details, as the trial progresses towards commencement.
Ilse emphasises, “With our combined experience and our exceptional team, we are committed to be being readily available for all your enquiries and supporting you wherever it is needed. We are looking forward collaborating closely with all our national coordinating teams to ensure the success of this trial."
Interactive discussion and Q&A
Alike proceeded to provide an in-depth update on the upcoming clinical study, including the status of ethical and regulatory submissions, the validation process, review timelines, and the subsequent steps for trial setup in the respective countries.
This was followed by an active question-and-answer session with the national coordinating teams around the trial's scope and their roles within it. The interactive discussions touched on trial monitoring responsibilities, sample collection and storage, as well as patient randomisation and data management.
Within the framework of the European Commission's Horizon Europe plan, the consortium envisions ECRAID-Prime as a lasting clinical research infrastructure designed for medication and diagnostic trials in primary care and focusing on patients with respiratory illness. Underlining the project’s ambitions, Alike says, “By establishing and implementing these comprehensive processes today, we aim to create a robust platform for primary care trials that will serve us for many years to come.”
She expresses her gratitude to the network, saying, “A big thank you for all your support, hard work and dedication to our ambitions in primary care research. We are diligently working towards getting the trial up and running, and hope that in future, this will extend to a wide range of trials, including those involving compounds with less favourable safety profiles, so we can speed up the development of new treatments.”
What our national coordinating teams say...
It was great to meet the new Ecraid operations team and get an update on the study and its timelines. Our general practitioner (GP) network had a remarkable experience during the EXPECT-1 study within the COMBACTE-NET project, where we successfully enrolled more than 760 patients in a few months. With ECRAID-Prime, we now have the opportunity to conduct a therapeutic trial in primary care. While this entails different logistics, our GPs are already very enthusiastic!
- Elodie Pfender and Isabelle Herafa, both from CHU Limoges in France.
The information shared was highly valuable, offering insights into the current study preparations. I’m looking forward to the upcoming country meetings to delve into study details, as well as the manual detailing the handling nasopharyngeal samples. As we approach ECRAID-Prime's first study, I am excited to be part of an international network of researchers, and I’m very enthusiastic about the prospect of discovering new medications for treating respiratory tract infections.
- Slawomir Chlabicz, Principal Investigator and network coordinator, Medical University of Bialystok, Poland