Platform B: Translation of basic science into clinical studies and commercial exploitation

In the past 5 years, the ECCPS has been very successful in translating preclinical and clinical research results into clinical routine medicine and in achieving early commercial exploitation. In detail, ECCPS members conducted 35 phase I/II trials and coordinated/ largely contributed to 45 phase III/IV trials, entering a total of 2140 patients into these studies. As a result, ECCPS members were centrally involved in the authorization of 4 novel drugs (inhaled iloprost, inhaled treprostinil, sildenafil and tadalafil in pulmonary hypertension), with further ongoing large phase III pivotal trials being currently conducted under the guidance of ECCPS faculty members. 57 patents have been filed by the ECCPS community, of which 26 have already been sold/licensed to the pharmaceutical industry or are under negotiation. In addition, several novel diagnostic tools have been developed and are currently under negotiation for commercial exploitation (e.g. certified PCR test kit for pathogen detection). Several cooperative ventures with the pharmaceutical industry have been initiated such as the Endowed Chair for Pulmonary Hypertension (JLU; Pfizer Ltd). In addition, ECCPS members founded t2cure, a Science4Life awarded company developing novel progenitor cell-based regenerative therapies, in 2007 and the “Centre for innovative diagnostics and therapeutics in Rheumatology/Immunology (CIRI)” in 2011 (both GU), and were centrally involved in the foundation of Stellacure GmbH, an umbilical cord based stem cell bank. Moreover, ECCPS members implemented several national and international patient registries and biobanks, as detailed in Area I. Finally, complementary infrastructures supporting effective translation and commercial exploitation, such as the recently funded “Fraunhofer Group for Applied Drug Research” (State of Hessen LOEWE program), are under ECCPS leadership and will certainly foster our competitiveness in the Life Science sector. Altogether, platform B has proven effective and will continue to promote effective translation and early commercial exploitation.