NIHR Alder Hey CRF

Alder Hey Children s NHS Trust (AH), one of Europe s largest children s hospitals, provides secondary care for Liverpool s local population and tertiary/quaternary care for complex diseases across North West England and North Wales.

Within AH, the NIHR Alder Hey CRF (AHCRF) is established as an internationally leading facility for experimental medicine (EM) and early phase (EP) research for children and young people (CYP).

We pride ourselves on being child-centred and on delivering tailored, high-quality, complex/high intensity paediatric EP/EM research in areas of unmet clinical need (figure 1, section 6).

Alder Hey is the largest UK recruiter to NIHR studies of any paediatric Trust and AHCRF has recruited 10 first global, 4 first European and 5 first UK recruits to clinical trials in the last decade.

Our purpose-built facility, strategically co-located within AH, ensures access to high-quality EM/EP studies to the North West Coast region s population of 7 million people, including 1.7 million children.

Our region s significant socio-economic deprivation and health inequalities require strategies which ensure equity of access to the latest advances in health and care for all our patients.

Following AH s £500K initial investment in 2011 to develop AHCRF, two NIHR CRF awards (£2M-2012-17; £2M-2017-22) have led to sustained growth.

The AHCRF portfolio has grown by 277% since the previous NIHR award period, with a 385% increase in the commercially sponsored study portfolio (Table 1). 96% of studies opening in 2020 were within AHCRF EM Themes, with 85% of studies adopted on the NIHR CRN Portfolio.

Table 1: Portfolio growth by funding period Funding period Total number of studies Commercially sponsored studies 2011 – 2016 35 13 2017 - 2020 97 50 AHCRF-supported EM/EP studies have leveraged funding of £25M since 2017, representing a 14:1 return on investment Key objectives Building on above achievements, AHCRF propose to deliver four key objectives over the next five years: Expanded portfolio: we will exploit the expertise we have developed over the last decade to increase number and range of paediatric EM/EP studies delivered, with new emphasis on complex, high intensity, and Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) studies.

Increased recruitment: we will leverage our new expanded research recruitment and delivery networks (academic and industry partners, primary care, secondary care paediatric centres and Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust (LUHFT)-CRF, NW CRF Alliance, GOSH-NIHR BRC Paediatric Excellence Initiative) to maximise recruitment to our portfolio of studies, ensuring equality, diversity and inclusivity of paediatric participants.

Increased variety: we will undertake studies of innovative products, devices, and novel methodologies, in collaboration with industry partners, to deliver studies which improve outcomes and experience of CYP in trials and the quality of study data collected.

Stronger, better partnerships: we will synergise with our enhanced academic pipeline and mobilise our patient/parent involvement and engagement (PPIE) partners to increase grant applications, academic outputs, and future paediatric EM/EP research leaders.

Seamless integration with AH s Commercial Research (CORE) strategy will enable improved growth and strategic working with commercial partners, in a sustainable business model (Section 7.2)