c4c (conect4children) is a large collaborative public-private 6-year project aiming toprovide a sustainable, integrated platform for the efficient and swift delivery of high quality clinical trials in children and young people across all conditions and phases of the drug development process. The new network structure will facilitate the development of new drugs and other therapies for the entire paediatric population and it will become a benchmark in the currently fragmented European clinical research environment.

c4c is about novel collaboration between 35 academic and 10 industry partners from 20 European countries, and more than 50 third parties and around 500 affiliated partners. The project has received total of 140 Million € funding from the IMI2 Joint Undertaking, including European Union’s Horizon 2020 research funding (67 Million €) and EFPIA industry partners funding (73 Million as In-Kind contribution).

c4c will run several Proof-of-Viability (P-o-V) trials across Europe, providing children and young people participation opportunities for the better treatment option in several different therapeutic areas. Two of the three academic trials have started in Finland during 2020;

• TREOCAPA: Paracetamol in Premature Babies: will assess the effectiveness of paracetamol on the closure of the ductus arteriosus and the increase in surviving without the severe morbidities of extreme premature infants.
• KD-CAAP: Kawasaki Disease Coronary Artery Aneurysm Prevention trial: will assess the effectiveness of adding steroids to standard treatment in children with Kawasaki Disease

At the later phase (2020-2021) more P-o-V trials will be initiated by the EFPIA partner companies.

In Finland, HUS is one of the c4c-Beneficiaries, and other University Hospitals (4) in Finland will become as Third Parties to HUS via legal agreements, for the P-o-V trial conduction. FINPEDMED was able to join c4c project due to the good credit of the past 12-year operational history.

For more Information, please visit project website: c4c-Conect4Childen