Traditionally children and young people have been excluded from participating in clinical trials or have not had the opportunity to be involved in the design of clinical studies. However, this doesn’t mean that involving paediatric patients is not feasible and involving patients does have important benefits. It’s time to shift from a drug-centric approach towards…
After three years of hard work, we are proud to present the progression and the situation we position ourselves in today. Before conect4children (c4c), the sites within our network experienced big challenges in starting up and conducting clinical trials, as well as gathering expertise to facilitate these processes and trying to resolve (re-occurring) issues. At…
The conect4children project (c4c) is working to facilitate clinical trials across Europe to support the development of new drugs and other therapies for the entire paediatric population. In addition to the technical and operational improvements needed to achieve this goal, we also want to raise the general public’s awareness about the importance of paediatric clinical…
c4c experts have published ‘Improving clinical paediatric research and learning from COVID-19: recommendations by the conect4children expert advice group’ in Pediatric Research. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some challenges which c4c partners have had to contend with in their clinical trial operations. COVID-19 affected access to patients; laboratories; study materials; and availability of…
‘European research networks to facilitate drug research in children’ has been published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. Paediatric drug development faces several barriers. These include fragmentation of stakeholders and inconsistent processes during the conduct of research. This review summarises recent efforts to overcome these barriers in Europe. Two exemplar initiatives are described.…
In a conventional clinical trial, adult or paediatric, typically half of the participants receive the drug under investigation and half receive placebo or standard of care. If there are many trials in a disease area, it can be hard to find enough patients for all the trials taking place at a given time. Trials may…
“The conect4children (c4c) Consortium: Potential for Improving European Clinical Research into Medicines for Children” has been published in Pharmaceutical Medicine. Clinical trial scientists and their teams, for several decades, have partially succeeded in improving ways on how paediatric trials are conducted. In 2007, the European Union recognised the need to facilitate development of medicines…
“Path towards efficient paediatric formulation development based on partnering with clinical pharmacologists and clinicians, a c4c expert group White paper” has been published by British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. Despite regulatory requirements and incentives, paediatric formulations still lag behind adult formulations for medicines used in both adults and children. This is largely due to…
“Current knowledge, challenges and innovations in developmental pharmacology: a combined c4c expert group and ESDPPP White paper” has been published by British Journal of Pharmacology A new paper from c4c experts provides a summary of current evidence and provides scientific insight and suggestions to incorporate the latest knowledge on developmental pharmacology and innovative techniques…
What is conect4children? [Video] Better medicines for babies, children and young people Thanks to the joint forces of both academic and industry partners, the Pan-European network, c4c aims to accelerate the development of innovative medicines for the entire paediatric population. c4c listens to the voices of children, young people, and their families, and is committed…