MHRA to coordinate EU poverty related diseases project
EURIPRED will work to speed the development of new tools to combat diseases including TB, HIV, and malaria
The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), a centre of the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is coordinating a European project to speed up the development of ways to combat poverty related diseases.
The European Research Infrastructures for Poverty Related Diseases (EURIPRED) will work to reinforce the knowledge infrastructure across these diseases and speed the development of new tools such as vaccines, drugs, microbicides to combat tuberculosis (TB), HIV, malaria, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.
EURIPRED is funded with €8.5m from the European Commission. The collaboration includes scientists from 17 organisations in 10 countries.
Meghna Ramaswamy, Coordinator of EURIPRED and Scientific Lead at the Centre for AIDS Reagents at NIBSC, said: 'By creating partnerships between European scientists and international research teams from disease endemic countries, we expect to speed up the development of new vaccines, drugs and microbicides. By minimising fragmentation and duplication of research efforts and pooling resources EURIPRED can improve research efficiency and effectiveness.'
The project will be reinforced by partners in China, Russia and Kenya. Other objectives include collaboration on the selection, development, production, and validation of reference reagents, assays, and standards and training.
