The EATRIS I3 INFRA project proposal implements functioning international consortia of European translational research infrastructures, providing in-depth translational research services to external users. In 5 product groups (Vaccines, Imaging and Tracers, Biomarkers, ATMP's and Small Molecules), academic centres of excellence from 9 countries work together to create harmonised, European-wide access to existing infrastructure, covering a wide range of disease areas.

Amsterdam, October 1, 2011

Today marks the official start of EATRIS, a pan-European network of translational research infrastructure in medicine.  Building on a successful commencement phase funded by the European Commission in 2007-2010, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands are parties to the new agreement, with 3 more countries expected to follow by Q4 2011 and early 2012.  EATRIS is one of the Research Infrastructures, initiated by the European Strategic Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI).
 

Currently the translation of basic research discoveries into clinical application still lags behind expectations. Even in pharmaceutical R&D an inversion between research investment and output could be observed. However, the 120 participants from science, politics and industry at the International EATRIS conference "From Basic Research to Medical Innovation" in Rome, 7.-8. Oct 2010, believed that conditions for research and innovation are currently improving. Particularly as Dr. Ruxandra Dragia-Akli, Director Directorate Health of the DG Research of the European Commission (EC), presented the ‘Innovation Union’ just set up to put innovations in areas such as healthy aging at the heart of its political agenda. She highlighted that better framework conditions concerning funding as well as access to research infrastructure will be crucial factors for bringing more ideas into innovative products. EATRIS will contribute by implementing an open infrastructure from 2011: European translational research facilities open the doors to their cutting edge infrastructure to the entire biomedical research community.

EATRIS has become an interested party to the Committee for Advanced Therapies (CAT) at the European Medicine Agency (EMA) in London. The CAT is a multidisciplinary committee who plays a central role in the assessment of quality, safety and efficacy of new advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) for market approval.

In September a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by the majority of the EATRIS member states. The MoU describes the willingness of countries to support the creation of EATRIS as independent legal entity under the ERIC regulation and their efforts to find ways of financing EATRIS. Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and The Netherlands were the first countries to become part of this MoU.

For more information, please contact info@eatris.eu

At this occasion, the concept of EATRIS will be presented: Establishing a pan-European state-of-the-art research infrastructure to accelerate the translation of biomedical research discoveries into clinical applications. Experts from research, politics and industry will discuss how application-orientated biomedical research and development can best be promoted and how it can be used as a motor for innovations – especially in times of the global financial crisis.

For more information on the schedule and the speakers, please see the flyer on the programme. 

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The goal of EATRIS, the European Advanced Translational Research Infrastructure in Medicine, is to strengthen the Health R&D by providing a pan-European infrastructure to improve the development of new and innovative medicinal product. All essential information about EATRIS - its concept, goals and services - are now summarized in a new six page leaflet.

Finland has made its first specific commitment to the development of European biomedical research infrastructures (BMS ESFRIs) by supporting a joint pilot infrastructure project in bioinformatics (ELIXIR), biobanking (BBMRI) and translational research (EATRIS). The initial commitment of 1.85 M€ is to support preparation and pilot studies in 2010. This funding is meant to ensure Finland's commitment to the building of these European infrastructures. The level of funding in the future years was left open as this depends on the outcome and structures that will be developed in the pilot phase.