LIVE BLOG: R&D response to COVID-19 pandemic (Archived)

The Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB) and University Hospital Ghent have started a study testing Leukine, an inhaled formulation of an approved drug, developed by the US company Partner Therapeutics, in the treatment of patients with respiratory illness associated with COVID-19. Debasish Roychowdhury, chief medical officer at Partner, said the drug could help clear infection, boost the immune system and repair damaged tissues. The drug is already in phase II and III randomized trials in other lung infections.

The International Network for Government Science Advice postponed its annual meeting in Montreal to 18-21 April 2021 – seven months later than planned. The group, a club for government scientific advisors around the world, is also setting up an online hub to gather COVID-19 policy developments and expects to mount an online conference about it 15-16 September this year.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is offering grants for research to better understand COVID-19. There is a particular interest in viral natural history, pathogenicity, transmission, projects to develop medical countermeasures and suitable animal models for pre-clinical testing of vaccines and therapeutics. Application deadline: February 6, 2021.

The organisers of MedFIT 2020, the medical devices conference due to start on 30 June in Grenoble, said the event has been postponed to 15 September. Delegates will be able to use their pre-booked passes and exhibition stands on the new date.

The Research Excellence Framework, the massive four-yearly exercise by which university departments in the UK are ranked on the quality and impact of their research, has been put on hold. In an update released by REF it said the submission deadline on 27 November no longer applies. A new deadline will be set later, once the situation around COVID-19 is clearer.

The German Research Foundation announces a multidisciplinary funding opportunity to investigate the impact of epidemics and pandemics, such as SARS-CoV-2.  Eligible researches should be based in Germany or work at a German research institution abroad. Application deadline: September 1.

LifeArc accepts applications from academics, National Health Service employees or companies to develop COVID-19 therapeutics. Application deadline: April 6.

A clinical trial involving 3,200 patients in eight countries in Europe with severe COVID-19 infections, has been launched by the French national health research agency Inserm, to test four potential treatments for the coronavirus.  

French researchers analysed data from the scientific literature on SARS and MERS coronaviruses and the first publications on COVID-19 from China, to draw up the list of antiviral drugs to be tested. The four are also classified as top priorities for clinical testing by the World Health Organization. The trial has an adaptive design, which means any drugs that are not effective can be dropped from the study, and can be replaced by compounds emerging from the huge international effort that is going into discovering new therapies.

The French arm of the study, in which 800 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 infections will be treated, is funded by the French Ministries of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and Health and Solidarity (MSS), with the support of EU research projects that are funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

Study sites will also  be set up in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, with site selection being influenced by the course of the epidemic.

The European Research Council has published a list of 39 of its grantees across Europe who are doing frontier research in virology, epidemiology and other topics now relevant to COVID-19. Some, including Vittoria Colizza, a computational epidemiologist at France’s national health research agency INSERM, are also among recipients of the European Commission’s emergency COVID-19 research grants, announced 20 March.

GÉANT, the pan European network connecting 39 national research and education establishments across Europe, announced it is cancelling its annual Conference TNC20, due to be held in Brighton UK, June 8 - 12. While many other conferences are being held in virtual mode, such as this week’s BioEurope Spring, which was to have been in Paris, GÉANT has decided against using its extensive networks for this, because of the surge in demand for its services from institutions and schools that have been forced to switch to remote teaching and learning.