Combating Poverty-Related Diseases: Work Plan 2017 for EDCTP2 Programme Published

The annual work plan 2017 for the second European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) has recently been published. This year, EDCTP is launching 11 calls for proposals with deadlines between September 2017 and March 2018. The activities of the EDCTP2 programme are supported along three distinct types of actions: Research & Innovation Actions (RIA), Coordination & Support Actions (CSA), and Training & Mobility Actions (TMA).

The overall objective of the EDCTP2 programme is to contribute to the reduction of the social and economic burden of poverty-related diseases (PRDs) in developing countries, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. Its main target is to accelerate the clinical development of new or improved drugs, vaccines, microbicides and diagnostics against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as well as other poverty-related infectious diseases with a focus on phase II and III clinical trials.

The programme will run over a ten-year period from 2014 to 2024, and the EU supports the programme with a financial contribution of up to EUR 683 million from the Horizon 2020 programme's societal challenge "Health, Demographic Change and Well-being".

The activities of the EDCTP2 programme will contribute towards achieving the following five specific objectives:

1. Increase the number of new or improved medical interventions for poverty-related diseases (PRDs), including neglected ones;
2. Strengthen cooperation with sub-Saharan African countries, in particular on building their capacity for conducting clinical trials in compliance with fundamental ethical principles and relevant national, EU and international legislation;
3. Better coordinate, align and, where appropriate, integrate relevant national programmes to increase the cost-effectiveness of European public investments;
4. Extend international cooperation with other public and private partners to ensure that the impact of all research is maximised and that synergies can be taken into consideration and to achieve leveraging of resources and investments;
5. Increase impact due to effective cooperation with relevant EU initiatives, including its development assistance.

Click here to download the complete work plan 2017.

For some general information on the application procedure, please see the FAQs on EDCTP2 Calls.