Trans-national Access Call: COVID-19 Therapeutics Pipeline

With more than 1.5 million deaths by the end of 2020 and no signs of slowing down, the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the deadliest diseases to plague mankind in recent times. Considerable scientific effort from all over the world has been rallied to fight this common foe.

With this free-of-charge TA Call `COVID-19 Therapeutics Pipeline´, INFRAFRONTIER is providing researchers access to test their innovative and novel COVID-19 therapeutics in a standardised infection pipeline that uses preclinical models to study COVID-19 infection.

Context and aims of the call

Main objective of this INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access Call is to provide extensive user support to the selected projects for assessing novel potential vaccine and treatment compounds for COVID-19. As starting material for the TA service, only sufficient amounts of the therapeutic candidate and desired mode of administration will be provided by the TA call users. It will be incumbent upon users to provide these materials and information.

Viral particles, COVID-19 mouse models, cohort production and BSL3 pipeline analysis will be provided by INFRAFRONTIER partners - CIPHE and CCP. Further functional analysis and advanced readouts like organ histopathological analysis, multiplex assay profiling of cytokines and chemokines in lung and mouse serum etc. can be provided on a collaborative basis outside the scope of this TA call. A final infection profile report will be provided as a deliverable.

APPLICATIONS CLOSED: We are not accepting any more applications. Follow the link below to express your interest in this call.

Further Details about the Free-of-Charge COVID-19 Therapeutics Pipeline Service

Access modalities

The EC Horizon2020 funded INFRAFRONTIER2020 project (2017 – 2020) supports eligible customers with a free-of-charge COVID-19 Therapeutics Pipeline service implemented as a Trans-national Access activity supporting a total of 5 projects in this call.

The access unit offered covers the (1) suitable delivery of preventive therapeutics or vaccines pre-infection or curative therapeutic candidates after infection, (2) infection of COVID-19 mouse models (females) with appropriate SARS-CoV-2 virus titers, (3) monitoring of mice for mortality, morbidity and clinical symptoms and (4) determination of viral titers in the lung and brain.

Only one access unit per therapeutic candidate will be provided. Additional candidates will require separate independent applications.

Proposals with customized study designs for the therapeutic pipeline (other than the standard pipeline offered) or requiring any customization of the standard pipeline will be assessed on their technical and financial feasibility by the service provider.
Support will be provided by the CIPHE experts to analyse and interpret the data.

A collaboration agreement will be established between applicants and CIPHE/CCP.

Accepted proposals will start with the provision of the therapeutic candidate that is ready to be injected and end with the delivery of infection data reports to selected applicants.

Further functional analysis and advanced readouts like organ histopathological analysis, multiplex assay profiling of cytokines and chemokines in lung and mouse serum etc. can be provided on a collaborative basis outside the scope of this TA call.

A final infection profile report will be provided as a deliverable. The results will be disseminated in the following ways:

1) The selected proposals (5 applications, only project descriptions) will be included in a final project report to the EC at the end of 2021.
2) The results will be made publicly available 12 months after their submission to the applicant. This can be extended by an additional 6 months under justified circumstances.

Costs: The access to the INFRAFRONTIER2020 COVID-19 therapeutic pipeline service is free-of-charge. However, the shipment of the therapeutic compound to CIPHE must be borne by the applicants.

Eligibility: The INFRAFRONTIER2020 Trans-national Access call is open and proposals can be submitted from non-commercial applicants around the world.

Application: Service requests for the INFRAFRONTIER2020 COVID-19 therapeutic pipeline service can be made via this application form. Applications for the Trans-national Access activity must include a short description of why the therapeutic candidate is a candidate for a COVID-19 vaccine/treatment and future research plans after the INFRAFRONTIER2020 TA service.

Selection procedure: Proposals from eligible customers for free-of-charge access to the INFRAFRONTIER2020 COVID-19 Therapeutics Pipeline Service will be subject to a review procedure. A mixed panel of INFRAFRONTIER members and an external Evaluation Committee will assess service requests supported by the TA activity. In addition to scientific merit of applicants, relevance and quality of preliminary data, soundness of the proposal and research plans will be assessed. Additionally, experts of CIPHE/CCP will assess the technical feasibility of projects. The technical evaluation of projects may require the provision of additional data.

Applicants will be informed on the outcome of the evaluation within 6 weeks after the end of the call for which the TA application was submitted. All applications will be handled with strict confidentiality.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is a Trans-national Access (TA) activity?

TA activities provide trans-national access to researchers or research teams to one or more infrastructures among those operated by INFRAFRONTIER partners. These access activities are implemented in a coordinated way such as to improve the overall services available to the research community. Access is made available to external users, either in person ('hands-on') or through the provision of remote scientific services, such as the provision of reference materials or samples or analysis of samples.

Who can participate in a Trans-national Access call?

Proposals for this Trans-national Access call can be submitted from non-commercial applicants around the world. Only 20% of the access units will be allocated to users that are not EU-member states or EU-associated states.

Is the TA service completely free-of-charge?

This TA service is covered by the INFRAFRONTIER2020 project (Horizon 2020). The conditions for free access are 1) the user must work in an institution of a EU-Member State or EU-Associated State, 20% of access units will be allocated to international users, and 2) the user must be selected by the INFRAFRONTIER Evaluation Committee.

The access to the COVID-19 therapeutic pipeline service is free-of-charge. However, the shipment of the therapeutic compound to CIPHE must be borne by the applicants.

Are submitted proposals treated with confidentiality?

Submitted project proposals will be collected and passed on by the INFRAFRONTIER2020 Project Office to members of the external Evaluation Committee. All members of the Evaluation Committee signed a confidentiality agreement.

What is the selection process and the criteria used to assess submitted proposals?

Proposals from eligible customers for free-of-charge access to the INFRAFRONTIER2020 COVID-19 Therapeutics Pipeline Service will be subject to a review procedure. A mixed panel of INFRAFRONTIER members and an external Evaluation Committee will assess service requests supported by the TA activity. In addition to scientific merit of applicants, relevance and quality of preliminary data, soundness of the proposal and research plans will be assessed. Additionally, experts of CIPHE/CCP will assess the technical feasibility of projects. The technical evaluation of projects may require the provision of additional data.

APPLICATIONS CLOSED

Application deadline: 28 February 2021

Application costs: This TA Call is free-of-charge for the selected applicants.

Please contact info@infrafrontier.eu if you have any questions.