Reaching out: a meeting to advance clinical research preparedness for infectious disease outbreaks

The Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R) is the only network of major research funding organizations working on a global scale. The Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-)emerging Epidemics (PREPARE) is building Europe’s capacity to do clinical research under the inevitable circumstances of an infectious disease epidemic or pandemic.

PREPARE and GloPID-R have teamed up to bring you this global, solutions focused meeting, which will examine bottlenecks to (rapid) deployment of clinical research in an infectious disease outbreak and what we can do to overcome them. The meeting will be of interest to patients, researchers, regulators, funders and policy makers.

Clinical research is vital to impact health outcomes and save lives in an infectious disease outbreak. To be effective, clinical research must be fast, flexible and integrated with the front line response.

Globally, progress is being made to improve preparedness and deliver clinical research as a core part of outbreak response. But there remain many challenges to rapid research deployment.

This meeting will examine bottlenecks to (rapid) deployment of clinical research in an infectious disease outbreak and what we can do to overcome them. Patients, researchers, regulators, funders and policy makers must work together to achieve this.

Practical solutions exist.

Clinical study protocols can be pre-specified and pre-approved, regulatory and ethical approvals can be fast tracked, pre-funded clinical trial networks can respond, novel clinical trial designs can accelerate evaluation of treatment interventions, and good participatory practice with patients and local communities can make sure research processes are contextually and culturally appropriate.

• Through presentations, panel discussions and audience debate we will:·

• Highlight the vital role of clinical research in an infectious disease (ID) epidemic or pandemic
• Provide insight into clinical trial networks in global regions
• Highlight the value of combining antimicrobial (AMR) clinical research with ID pandemic preparedness
• Illustrate the fundamental role of working in partnership with patients and the communities
• Show how regulators can ensure robust yet expedient review of clinical study protocols
• Demonstrate the value of novel clinical trial designs to evaluate therapeutic interventions

Practical workshops delivered by experts from different global regions will demonstrate how to approach research design, delivery and dissemination. Workshops include:

• How to work with patients and communities
• How to identify priority research questions
• How to conduct rapid ethical review of epidemic-relevant study protocols
• How to translate research into practice to create impact

The event will interest anyone involved in outbreak preparedness: clinicians, researchers, patient groups, regulators, public health, administrators, funders, and ethics advisory groups.