Seven Investigator Initiated Clinical Trials approved

The National Research Council has approved seven investigator initiated clinical trials. The third IICT call will be launched in mid-July 2017.

With the programme Investigator Initiated Clinical Trials (IICT), the SNSF promotes clinical studies in areas that are not in the industry focus and therefore under-researched. In the 2016 call, the SNSF received 35 proposals, seven of which will be funded with an overall amount of 9.7 million francs.

Most of the projects will last between four and five years and involve 140 to 2000 patients in up to nine study centres. All university hospitals, the cantonal hospitals of Aargau, Lucerne and St. Gallen as well as another eight hospitals and research institutions are participating. Before the projects can get underway, they need to be approved by the cantonal ethics commissions and Swissmedic.

The next call for the IICT programme will be launched in mid-July 2017.

Approved projects:

  • Mathias Abegg, Inselspital Bern
    Using botox instead of the standard surgery to treat strabism.
  • Johannes van den Anker, Universitäts-Kinderspital beider Basel
    Treating pneumonia in children with glucocorticoid betamethason.
  • Reto Auer, Universität Bern
    Are e-cigarettes an efficient and safe way to stop smoking?
  • Heike Bischoff-Ferrari, Universitätsspital Zürich
    Proteins and excercise to stop muscular atrophy in old age.
  • Thierry Buclin, CHUV
    Chronic pain: Is it possible to find a better therapy than the standard treatment by running a double-blind, randomised clinical trial alternating placebo and pain killers in individual patients ("N of 1 trial")?
  • Oriol Manuel, CHUV
    Reducing the Burden of Influenza after Solid-Organ Transplantation by testing different vaccination types.
  • Andreas Widmer, Universitätsspital Basel
    Which disinfectant is more effective before surgery: chlorhexidine or PVP iodine?