Best practices and recommendations for effective and cost ‐ efficient call management in bioeconomy related ERA ‐ NETs : Deliverable 3.1 Recommendations call management

A dedicated event on call management organised by the FP7 project Platform of Knowledge Based Bio ‐ Economy relevant ERA ‐ NETs (PLATFORM) brought together ERA ‐ NET call officers, most of them with 2 ‐ 8 years of experience in (transnational) call management. Prior to the event a survey among bioeconomy relevant ERA ‐ NETs had been conducted to get a picture of the differences and similarities in the way the ERA ‐ NETs work, and help to identify areas to discuss. In this master class, organised by the WP3 of PLATFORM on June 17 ‐ 18, 2013 in Brussels, practices for different aspects of the call cycle were presented and the factors required for proper call management were discussed. This expert ‐ driven process resulted in a high level of agreement and a set of recommendations for call organisation, proposal evaluation and ranking, project selection and funding, and monitoring. This document is the summary report of the topics selected by the PLATFORM partners as the most relevant for mutual learning and of the discussions of these topics in the master class

Best practices and recommendations for effective and cost ‐ efficient call management in bioeconomy related ERA ‐ NETs : Deliverable 3.1 Recommendations call management

A dedicated event on call management organised by the FP7 project Platform of Knowledge Based Bio ‐ Economy relevant ERA ‐ NETs (PLATFORM) brought together ERA ‐ NET call officers, most of them with 2 ‐ 8 years of experience in (transnational) call management. Prior to the event a survey among bioeconomy relevant ERA ‐ NETs had been conducted to get a picture of the differences and similarities in the way the ERA ‐ NETs work, and help to identify areas to discuss. In this master class, organised by the WP3 of PLATFORM on June 17 ‐ 18, 2013 in Brussels, practices for different aspects of the call cycle were presented and the factors required for proper call management were discussed. This expert ‐ driven process resulted in a high level of agreement and a set of recommendations for call organisation, proposal evaluation and ranking, project selection and funding, and monitoring. This document is the summary report of the topics selected by the PLATFORM partners as the most relevant for mutual learning and of the discussions of these topics in the master class

A randomized crossover study comparing different tacrolimus formulations to reduce intrapatient variability in tacrolimus exposure in kidney transplant recipients

A high intrapatient variability (IPV) in tacrolimus exposure is a risk factor for poor long-term outcomes after kidney transplantation. The main objective of this trial was to investigate whether tacrolimus IPV decreases after switching patients from immediate-release (IR)-tacrolimus to either extended-release (ER)-tacrolimus or LifeCyclePharma (LCP)-tacrolimus. In this randomized, prospective, open-label, cross-over trial, adult kidney transplant recipients on a stable immunosuppressive regimen, including IR-tacrolimus, were randomized for conversion to ER-tacrolimus or LCP-tacrolimus, and for the order in which IR-tacrolimus and the once-daily formulations were taken. Patients were followed 6 months for each formulation, with monthly tacrolimus predose concentration assessments to calculate the IPV. The IPV was defined as the coefficient of variation (%) of dose corrected predose concentrations. Ninety-two patients were included for analysis of the primary outcome. No significant differences between the IPV of IR-tacrolimus (16.6%) and the combined once-daily formulations (18.3%) were observed (% difference +1.7%, 95% confidence interval [CI] −1.1% to ‒4.5%, p = 0.24). The IPV of LCP-tacrolimus (20.1%) was not significantly different from the IPV of ER-tacrolimus (16.5%, % difference +3.6%, 95% CI −0.1% to 7.3%, p = 0.06). In conclusion, the IPV did not decrease after switching from IR-tacrolimus to either ER-tacrolimus or LCP-tacrolimus. These results provide no arguments to switch kidney transplant recipients from twice-daily (IR) tacrolimus formulations to once-daily (modified-release) tacrolimus formulations when the aim is to lower the IPV