PrIMAVeRa Consortium holds Annual Meeting in Siena
Consortium partners of the PrIMAVeRa project met in Siena, Italy, on 27-28 October for the project’s fifth annual meeting, co-organized by project coordinator European Vaccine Initiative (EVI) and industry lead GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The event provided the opportunity for more than 40 individuals representing the project’s 18 partner organisations to connect, align, and advance progress towards project aims.
Principal investigators presented on the past year’s continued progress made toward modelling the impact of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies on antimicrobial resistance, as well as the cost-effectiveness of these interventions, across three target pathogens: Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Escherichia coli. Progress made on a generic, more flexible model was also presented, as well as a demonstration of the project-developed Dashboard, which visualises the impact of vaccine and monoclonal antibody interventions on AMR. Plans for sustainability of the project’s outputs were also presented and discussed, as well as strategies to promote and opportunities to further develop the results generated within PrIMAVeRa over the past five years.
The meeting included two keynote presentations: Danilo Marino Armando Lo Fo Wong, Head of Human Health, The International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions (ICARS), spoke on “From evidence to impact: What three decades in AMR has taught me about making solutions stick,” while Fabio Bagnoli, Senior Scientific Director, Infectious Disease Research at GSK, presented “Advancing Solutions for AMR: Vaccines, Monoclonal Antibodies and Collaborative Innovation”.
In addition, “Maximising the impact of PrIMAVeRa” was the focus of a presentation by Lim Tek-Ang, Scientific Officer at the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI). He highlighted the importance of effective dissemination and exploitation of project results to ensure that they reach relevant stakeholders and continue to be used beyond the project's lifetime. He also introduced the European Commission's Booster programme, encouraging the consortium to consider applying for its dedicated support to strengthen the dissemination strategy, identify relevant audiences and maximise the uptake and impact of PrIMAVeRa's results.
One of the highlights of the meeting was the external expert panel discussion, entitled “From Uncertainty to Investment: What PrIMAVeRa Tells Us, and What It Doesn't Yet,” moderated by Valentijn Schweitzer (University Medical Center Utrecht), with contributions from Deepali Patel (AMR Action Fund), Vega Masignani (CARB-X), Nina Zhu (Imperial College London), and Danilo Lo Fo Wong (ICARS). The discussion explored the credibility and practical relevance of PrIMAVeRa findings, the role of modelling in informing decisions on preventive products against AMR, and the key evidence gaps that need to be addressed to support policy and investment decisions. Panellists also discussed how model outputs could translate into R&D funding and investment, the potential priorities for future development of PrIMAVeRa, and the requirements for ensuring the platform long-term sustainability, accessibility, adoption and continued use beyond the project lifetime.
This event helped to align partners on the next steps to fully conclude project activities and promote results to the widest, most applicable audience. Participants agreed on several key priorities to complete the project:
Agreement on the modelled intervention scenarios: Reach consensus on key intervention attributes, including efficacy, coverage, duration of protection and target populations, to support harmonised scenarios and meaningful comparisons across analyses.
Finalisation of generic-model outputs: Complete the generic-model analyses for the agreed intervention scenarios and prepare outputs for integration into the dashboard.
Finalisation of pathogen-specific model outputs: Complete the analyses for each pathogen-specific model, incorporating agreed refinements, and prepare outputs for integration into the dashboard.
Integration of cost-effectiveness analyses: Combine epidemiological and economic outputs to estimate healthcare costs averted and assess the cost-effectiveness of the vaccine and monoclonal-antibody interventions under consideration.
Finalisation of the dashboard: Refine visualisations and explanatory content in line with stakeholder feedback, and integrate outputs from the generic model, pathogen-specific models and cost-effectiveness analyses.
Communication and dissemination: Develop and implement a targeted communication campaign to ensure that project outputs reach and inform relevant policy, research and industry stakeholders.
“PrIMAVeRa has made significant progress in advancing the evidence base for the role of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies in tackling antimicrobial resistance. Our priority now is to translate these achievements into lasting impact.”
-Dr Irina Meln, Project Lead, European Vaccine Initiative
The annual meeting served as a catalyst towards maintaining momentum leading into the project’s final months. Going forward, the Consortium will focus on finalising the generic model and several individual models. The Consortium will also map out the project assets, and continue development of the project’s sustainability plan.
This work has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 101034420 (PrIMAVeRa). This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. www.imi.europa.eu
This communication reflects the author's view and neither IMI nor the European Union, EFPIA, or any Associated Partners are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.
