Consolidating the capacities of EATRIS-ERIC for Personalised Medicine

Project Information

EATRIS-Plus

Grant agreement ID: 871096

DOI

10.3030/871096

Project closed

EC signature date 16 December 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 31 December 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 4 999 023,75

EU contribution

€ 4 999 023,25

Coordinated by

EATRIS ERIC
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EATRIS-Plus (Consolidating the capacities of EATRIS-ERIC for Personalised Medicine)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overarching aim of EATRIS-Plus project is to support the long-term sustainability of EATRIS ERIC by delivering innovative scientific tools to the research community, strengthening the infrastructure’s financial model and reinforcing EATRIS leadership in the European Research Area (ERA), particularly in the field of Personalised Medicine (PM) research and development.
Personalised Medicine (PM) research identifies interventions that can target individual patients based on their predicted response. This has substantial value for patients, as it can reduce trial-and-error treatments and increase effectiveness, which in turn helps to manage the rising healthcare costs of an already aging population. In this process the role of multi-omic technologies is absolutely vital. Therefore the EATRIS-Plus project delivered an open access validated community resource for researchers - The Multi-omics Toolbox (MOTBX) https://motbx.eatris.eu that helps to expedite translational research by making it easier for academics, clinicians and industry to find relevant resources related to multi-omics analysis.
In addition to the scientific endeavours, EATRIS-Plus helped to expand, consolidate and exploit the translational academic capacities of the infrastructure to enable researchers to better address the scientific and societal challenges in the field of PM. Centrally, the EATRIS hub as well as all current 14 national nodes (with over 150 institutions) participated in implementing a plethora of joint activities. These included outreach to the various academic, industry, funders and patients to raise awareness of the opportunities and services through EATRIS.
Patient engagement practices research increase the quality, patient relevance and societal acceptance of research and its results. By engaging with patients, researchers play a pivotal part in shifting and improving research practices, they contribute to a more open and accessible research and empower patients to have an active role in research. EATRIS-Plus had a strategic role in patient engagement and launched the Patient Engagement Resource Centre (PERC) https://patient-engagement.eu in order to promote uptake and ease of access to researchers performing patient engagement activities.
EATRIS-Plus project was an invaluable sustainability-developing cornerstone to EATRIS ERIC with all 14 national nodes. It further established EATRIS as a credible force and a key player in the translational medicine ecosystem and will have a positive impact on translating biomedical findings to patient benefit for years to come.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The key scientific output of the project – the Multi-omics Toolbox (MOTBX) was launched in November 2023. Another important development is the EATRIS Commitment to Quality Certificate (ECCQ), that will be further promoted to EATRIS institutes beyond the project.
The Framework for the Assessment of Personalised Medicine Solutions Compared to Standard of Care developed based on the 9 dimensions of the HTA Core Model, and piloted in the project provides a widely applicable method for the assessment of new innovative solutions compared to standard of care.
The ambitious capacity-building programme for 14 national nodes had delivered 10 professionalisation workshops and supported the task of national nodes strategic plans development. The Staff Exchange Programme supported 25 visitors from EATRIS nodes and member institutes in knowledge and best practices exchange creating numerous collaborations and providing a solid framework for exploitation in future settings.
The European Alliance of Medical Research Infrastructures (EU-AMRI) was launched and collaborations with national nodes of BBMRI, ECRIN as well as other Life Science RIs took place in several countries.
The project was highly successful in engaging various stakeholder groups, in particular the patient community. In addition to the Patient Advisory Committee (PAC), a joint advocacy programme was launched with the European Patients’ Forum (EPF) and activities continued with the European Patient Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI). The Patient Engagement Resource Centre to support researchers get started with patient engagement was launched in March 2023 and remains freely available beyond the project duration.
Extensive outreach to industry was performed through organisation and participation in partnering and matchmaking events. Innovation Hub concepts were developed in collaboration with EFPIA to address white spots in rare diseases where Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) could add value.
Over 600 researchers were trained through Summer Schools in Personalised Medicine, TransMed Academy https://eatris.eu/transmed-academy online learning environment and the Public-Private Collaboration workshops.
The Innovation Hubs practice as well as the Public-Private Collaboration workshop model were selected as Best Practice Examples in the European Commission Science Valorisation platform.
Global collaboration continues with the Translation Together and NewFound initiatives, and the Innovation Management Toolbox https://imt.ejprarediseases.org received the IRDIRC Recognized resource title in 2023.
All project open opportunities were widely advertised via newsletters and social media campaigns (LinkedIn, X and Facebook). Partners participated in conferences, partnering meetings, workshops, panels, responding to consults and calls and taking advantage of other policy and programmes-oriented opportunities to raise the awareness of the project and to disseminate the outcomes.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

EATRIS-Plus uses cutting-edge academic expertise and technology services to help de-risk and improve the flow of academic and industry developments downstream towards the patient, reducing barriers to public-private and public-public collaboration, facilitating the development of novel patient-targeted diagnostic and therapy interventions necessary for the adoption of PM.
The project significantly supports the development of analytical tools and operational models to reduce the cost and time associated with early medicines development, thereby enhancing biomedical innovation at European and global levels.
The main scientific impacts are enhanced access for academics and researchers to translational tools and expertise and more efficient use of Personalised Medicine solutions at the clinical level. In terms of economic impact we see faster development of patient-targeted diagnostic and therapy products, and higher return on investment in fundamental research. The most important societal impacts are patients’ improved access to individually-targeted innovative therapeutic products, and society’s meaningful participation in research and innovation through better understanding of the role of science in society. In terms of human capital impact we contribute to better-trained clinicians in the use of translational medicine tools, and finally for policy impact the efficient implementation of action plans for Personalised Medicine and stronger global EU leadership and consolidation of the biomedical RI landscape.

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