The fourth meeting of the members of the Spanish Network of Pediatric Clinical Trials (Reclip) closed yesterday in Santiago with “the satisfaction of having been able to listen to all the voices involved, from nurses to researchers, the pharmaceutical industry or the Spanish Medicines Agency and Sanitary Products, which will allow us to advance in the development of better and faster medicines, with guarantees for children”, explained Dr. Federico Martinón, general coordinator of said organization, in statements to THE MAIL.
In a meeting in which there was a review of the achievements and the most immediate challenges were addressedthe also head of Pediatrics at CHUS indicated that one of the great commitments acquired this Friday was to “work for the sustainability of the network and, in addition, we adopted a very important decision, such as transmitting the importance of promoting Pediatric clinical research at all levels, not only those of the network, but the future of research must be protected, that the research carried out by doctors be considered as a curricular value because it is something that must have an additional assessment and that is already contemplated in other countries”.
He stressed that “clinical research is complicated, and pediatric research even more so,” something that in his opinion was evident throughout Europe with the pandemic“where the deficiencies in research were seen, we must protect what works and those centers that do it well,” he said.
Regarding the sustainability that the eighty participants promised to seek in person and around another 50 online, he indicated that “investing in pediatric clinical trials is something very complex, and it is necessary to professionalize this field in order to give an efficient response to the patient and the promoter himself.
“In Santiago, they know that we are experts and that the maximum guarantees are offered to patients and to the promoter who wants to test their molecule, and that allows us to make medicines available to patients many years in advance,” said Dr. Martinón.
A trajectory that of the Clinician in this field of which they are a magnificent example the sixty active pediatric clinical trials in which the hospital is currently workingthe vast majority in the area of vaccines and infectious diseases, but also in pediatric oncology and congenital pathologies.
Martinón believes that the RSV vaccine for adults is a turning point
For this, he insisted, it is important “that all the tools work, that there is a professionalized structure because if you have a vaccine and you cannot develop it, or if it cannot reach the market, in the end it is useless, it cannot be improvised”.
The Spanish network coordinated by the CHUS Head of Pediatrics from the Santiago Health Research Institute is made up of 29 clinical nodes and 6 research networks and scientific societies.
It plays an important role in the international arena, since it participates with another 20 national networks in the conect4children projecta pan-European network created to facilitate the planning and conduct of clinical trials in children and young people, and which has a budget of approximately 140 million euros.
Last year, the Spanish Pediatric Clinical Trials Network promoted the activation of ten initiatives in this highly complex field in chronic kidney diseases, multiple sclerosis, fungal infections or Kawasaki disease.
