StatinTB’s funder, the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), published its Annual Report 2019 on August 14, 2020. The report shows the steady growth, scope, and cohesion of the project portfolio, and highlights the progress made towards the objectives of the programme.

The EDCTP is a public-public partnership between 14 European and 16 African countries, supported by the European Union. Its mission is to accelerate the development of new or improved medicinal products for the identification, treatment, and prevention of infectious diseases, including emerging and re-emerging diseases, through pre- and post-registration clinical studies, with emphasis on phase II and III clinical trials.

EDCTP-funded grants support activities at 208 institutions in 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and at 150 institutions in 16 European countries. The earlier account for 57.6% of total EDCTP funding, a proof of the programme’s objective to ‘increase cooperation with sub-Saharan Africa through capacity building for conducting clinical trials according to ethical principles and regulatory standards’.

The programme’s other main objectives are to:

• Support new or improved medical interventions against poverty-related infectious diseases.
• Improve coordination, alignment and integration of European National Programmes.
• Increase international cooperation with public and private partners.
• Increase interaction with other EU initiatives, including those linked to development assistance.

Ten new calls for proposal were launched in 2019, bringing the total number of the second EDCTP programme (EDCTP2) calls to 53.

Source: EDCTP Annual Report 2019 / Concept and design: Daniela Pereira

EDCTP and StatinTB share a strong commitment to capacity building

StatinTB’s major focus on capacity building activities goes hand in hand with the EDCTP’s commitment to strengthen the capacity of multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Work Package 3, led by the University of Namibia (UNAM), concentrates on developing a platform through which knowledge and best practices can be exchanged between professionals at the project’s European and African partner universities.

Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, Chair of the EDCTP General Assembly, writes in his foreword to the EDCTP Annual Report 2019 that “the EDCTP’s commitment to capacity building – embedded in its clinical trial support and through specific grants – is laying the foundation for the research of the future in sub-Saharan Africa.”

He underlined that “we should also not forget that Europe benefits significantly from these partnerships. European researchers gain from access to patient populations and local expertise and experience of disease, and have much greater opportunity for their research to make a difference to people’s lives. Europe as a whole benefits because control of infectious disease in low-resource settings is central to global health security.”

271 grants supported by the EDCTP2 2014-2019

By the end of 2019, the number of grants supported by EDCTP2 since 2014 reached 271. A complete list of the partnership’s projects can be found here.

The total funding provided by the EDCTP between 2014 and 2019 amounts to €608.41 M. Most funding was awarded to the EDCTP’s 84 collaborative clinical trials and clinical studies, which received in total €526.04 M. The partnership awarded €51.27 M to 57 clinical research capacity strengthening projects and €31.10 M to 130 fellowships that focus on the career development of individual researchers.

Source: EDCTP Annual Report 2019 / Concept and design: Daniela Pereira

30% of EDCTP’s collaborative clinical research grants focus on tuberculosis

The EDCTP portfolio is well-balanced, with 63.1% of projects being focused on the three major poverty-related infectious diseases (HIV and HIV-associated infections, tuberculosis, and malaria), 15.5% on neglected infectious diseases, 10.7% on emerging and re-emerging infections, and 10.7% on diarrhoeal diseases and lower respiratory tract infections.

Of the 84 collaborative clinical trials and clinical studies included in the EDCTP’s portfolio, almost 30% (24 projects) focus on tuberculosis. The number of tuberculosis-oriented projects is almost as high as that of projects that focus on malaria (12 grants) and HIV and HIV-associated infections (16) combined.

Divided by disease, tuberculosis-focused projects received 27.9% (€146.73 M) of the total funding (€526.04 M) awarded by the EDCTP to its collaborative clinical research projects between 2014 and 2019.

Source: EDCTP Annual Report 2019 / Concept and design: Daniela Pereira

The full online publication of the EDCTP Annual Report 2019 can be found here. And a summary version can be downloaded (as a PDF) here.