Alder Hey children’s hospital and Proveca Collaboration
Collaboration between Alder Hey and Proveca Ltd to improve children’s medicines
Alder Hey children’s hospital and Proveca Ltd are joining forces with the aim of improving medicines for children and young people.
The new collaborative partnership plans to provide the best pharmaceutical treatments for children by identifying existing gaps and developing new products specifically for – and with – children and young people.
Dr Simon Bryson, CEO and founder of Proveca Ltd –
“We’re delighted and excited about our new collaboration with the team at Alder Hey. By bringing together the expertise in paediatric healthcare of Alder Hey with the paediatric pharmaceutical expertise of Proveca we aim to drive innovation in improving the lives of children with unmet medical needs.”
Dr Louise Bracken, Co-Director of Alder Hey’s Paediatric Medicines Research Unit said:
“This collaboration with Proveca builds on Alder Hey’s proud heritage in the development of safer, better medicines for children through its Paediatric Medicines Research Unit. We hope by teaming up with Proveca that we are able to identify key gaps in provision of medicines for children and bring new products to the national formulary which are tailored to the specific needs of children and young people.”
Historically, medicines were not developed specifically for children and young people. Many medicines are only available in dosage forms which are suitable for use in adults. For instance, small children are typically unable to swallow large tablets or capsules. Children are often given smaller or modified doses of adult medicines, by splitting tablets for instance, or by diluting liquid medicines. This not only means that accurate dosing can be difficult to achieve, but it also means that medicines designed for adults might not have been rigorously tested on children and young people.
This new collaboration between industry and one of the busiest children’s hospitals in Europe will call upon Alder Hey’s Paediatric Medicines Research and its NIHR funded Clinical Research Facility which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. The agreement provides an amazing opportunity to understand the needs of patients and identify the areas of unmet need to ensure that children receive age-appropriate formulations and improve adherence.
About Proveca Ltd.
Proveca Ltd is a European pharmaceutical company specialising in the development and licensing of medicines to address the unmet medical needs of children. The team at Proveca are seeking to improve the lives of children, many of whom require long-term drug treatment for chronic conditions. Working with clinicians, parents, carers and children, Proveca are leading the way in providing licenced, clinically proven, medicines that are tailored to the specific needs of children.
About Alder Hey:
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust provides care for over 330,000 children and young people every year. Alder Hey delivers clinical excellence for all children, for routine illnesses as well as very complex and rare conditions.
One of four stand-alone children’s hospitals in the UK, it is a national centre for neuro and craniofacial surgery, a regional centre for burns injuries and a Centre of Excellence for children with cancer, heart, spinal and brain disease. Alder Hey has an NIHR funded Clinical Research Facility (CRF) that specialises in the design, and delivery, of early phase drug trials in children with a wide range of conditions.
The Trust is one of only four epilepsy surgical centres in the UK and one of only two accredited major trauma centres in the North West. Alder Hey is also a respiratory Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) surge centre and is the referral centre for the treatment of congenital heart defects in North West England, North Wales and Isle of Man. It became the first UK Centre of Excellence for Childhood Lupus in 2010.
Alder Hey is the first accredited Investing in Children hospital in the UK. It has a dedicated patient experience programme which includes the award winning Alder Hey Arts involving music therapy, dance programmes, storytelling and animation projects. It is also one of a few hospitals to have a Children and Young Person’s Forum.
Alder Hey opened a new hospital ‘Alder Hey in the Park’ in 2015. Europe’s first hospital in a park, the new facility provides a purpose-built, unique and world class healing environment for children and young people.
Alder Hey is supported by The Alder Hey Children’s Charity which aims to raise vital funds for lifesaving equipment, research projects and patient experience initiatives.
For more information visit www.alderhey.nhs.uk and www.alderheycharity.org
About PMRU
The PMRU is a collaboration between Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, Edge Hill University, Liverpool John Moore’s University, the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Liverpool. Established in 2014 it has developed an extensive research portfolio within its themes of: Drug Safety Sciences; Formulations; Medicines Optimisation. It is also supported by industry, clinical experts and children and young people, both nationally and internationally. The vision of the PMRU is to improve the health of babies, children and young people through research into safer medicines management and age-appropriate formulations.
The PMRU has established national and international collaborations bringing together multisector expertise required to develop better and safer medicines for children. The expertise within the PMRU consortium includes clinical paediatric pharmacy practice, paediatric clinical pharmacology, clinical study and trial design, child participatory methods, patient and public involvement and engagement, qualitative research expertise, instrument development and validation, pharmacopeial laboratory methods, novel formulation development, regulatory insight and commercialisation.
Proveca Ltd – https://www.proveca.com/
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital – media@alderhey.nhs.uk
Proveca Ltd – enquiries@proveca.com
UK-21-0002
Created November 2021