Strongly associated with the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes that are testing healthcare systems worldwide, Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is an increasingly common cause of advanced liver disease that is characterized by substantial inter-patient variability in severity and rate of progression. It is currently assessed by liver biopsy, an invasive, costly and risky procedure. The lack of noninvasive biomarkers has hampered patient care and impeded drug development by complicating conduct of clinical trials.The overarching aim of LITMUS is to develop, robustly validate and advance towards regulatory qualification biomarkers that diagnose, risk stratify and/or monitor NAFLD/NASH progression and fibrosis stage. This will be achieved through a goal-oriented, tri-partite collaboration delivering a definitive and impartial evaluation platform for biomarkers, bringing together: (i) End-users of biomarker technologies (clinicians with expertise in NAFLD and the pharmaceutical industry)? (ii) Independent academics with expertise in the evaluation of medical test/biomarker performance? and (iii) Biomarker researchers and developers (academic or commercial). LITMUS has the demonstrable capability to fulfil the IMI call remit. Built upon foundations laid by the EU-funded FLIP/EPoS projects and long-established, successful scientific collaborations amongst many of Europe’s leading clinical-academic centres, LITMUS is at a unique advantage due to its existing large-scale patient cohorts, bioresources and multi-omics datasets. Consortium members are internationally recognised experts with substantial relevant expertise supporting the program’s clear focus on biomarker identification, validation and accelerating EMA/FDA qualification. Thus, LITMUS is powered to provide clarity on biomarker validity for NAFLD at scale and pace: supporting drug development and the targeting of medical care and limited healthcare resources to those at greatest need.

ConcePTION partners have united around a shared vision that we have a societal obligation to radically and rapidly reduce uncertainty about the safety of medication use in pregnancy and lactation. What do we deliver? ConcePTION aims to create a paradigm shift in how we study medication safety in pregnancy. We will establish (1) a successful, sustainable open-science based EU non-proprietary ecosystem of public and private stakeholders, pregnant women and researchers to generate and disseminate timely and reliable evidence on drugs across maternal, neonatal and long term outcomes of medication exposure in pregnancy and breastfeeding (2) a catalogue with fully characterized data sources for rapid selection of suitable data sources; 3) operational, business, network, information and data governance models, (4) quality assured and tested methodological approaches, analytical tools and data platforms allowing for distributed analyses, (5) procedures and tools for collection of digital data and samples directly from pregnant women, (6) In vitro, in silico and in vivo models for prediction of drug transfer in human milk, (7) a biobank and analytical network for quantification of drug in human milk, (8) best practice documents endorsed by regulators and health authorities and (9) a web-based drug information knowledge bank. How do we deliver? (1) Experienced leaders, able to manage challenging networks and public-public or public-private partnerships. (2) Defragmentation by connecting all key stakeholders and EU networks in this area. (3) Re-use of data, tools and foreground from prior European commission funded projects. (4) Connecting to leaders of similar initiatives in the USA, Canada, Asia and other parts of the world. (5) Systematic consensus & endorsement building. (6) Quality throughout as a precondition to trust the results and information by all users.

NHPig is an Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) project based on the public-private partnership of the European Union and Europe’s health industries. Its objective is to expand, share and implement biological knowledge of mini-/micropig models with the aim to reduce non-human primates (NHPs) in non-clinical safety studies. The transnational consortium includes experts in porcine medical models, veterinary pathology, computational animal science, non-clinical science, OMICs profiling, new approach methods (NAMs), as well as bioinformatics and artificial intelligence. NHPig will i) characterise humanised minipigs, micropigs and tailored disease models, including systematic biobanking, multi-OMICs profiling, and state-of-the-art imaging modalities; ii) develop, validate and implement biosensors, medical devices, and ‘intelligent’ animal housing for automated data collection and analysis in minipig safety studies; iii) fill significant knowledge gaps in the (patho)physiology of the porcine immune system; iv) validate known toxicity and efficacy biomarkers and discover novel biomarker candidates for non-clinical safety assessment; v) overcome the shortage of laboratory tools and reagents, such as validated antibodies; vi) gain experience in using mini-/micropigs for safety testing of biologicals and new therapeutic modalities; vii) Investigate in vitro to in vivo extrapolation of liver and kidney toxicity in pigs and NHP/humans to provide a comparative link to human new approach methodologies (NAMs); and viii) provide a publicly available database and IT platform for compiling, integrating and analysing existing data in NHPs/humans with data in mini-/micropig models (existing data and data generated within the NHPig programme). The establishment of a regulatory advisory board and an ethics- and animal welfare advisory board will expedite regulatory interactions and ensure compliance with the 3R principles. NHPig will generate the scientific basis for de-selection of NHPs in non-clinical safety assessment, which is an ethical requirement and also imperative according to EU legislation.