IICT programme: 14.4 million francs to fund six clinical studies
Combating heart failure in children and ensuring optimal pain management for cancer patients: The SNSF is providing 14.4 million Swiss francs in funding for six clinical studies as part of the IICT programme.
Marco Valgimigli (Istituto Cardiocentro Ticino) and his research team are investigating an alternative treatment method for coronary lesions, which carry a significant risk of heart attack. Meanwhile, Sacha Rothschild from the Cantonal Hospital Baden and his team are investigating the effectiveness of magnesium as a supplement to standard chemo-immunotherapy in patients with locally advanced, inoperable lung cancer.
Studies on insufficiently researched topics
Funding for these projects was never a given. Although the underlying medical questions are of great social and medical relevance, they are not given a correspondingly high priority in industry. The SNSF is therefore supporting them as part of its Investigator Initiated Clinical Trials (IICT) programme, which focuses on topics that have not been sufficiently researched.
The 2024 IICT call received 47 eligible proposals. Six of these projects will now receive a total of 14.4 million Swiss francs in funding. The researchers will work on their clinical studies for up to five years. Between 120 and 1,778 patients will be involved in each project.
In one study, researchers led by Patrick Badertscher from the University Hospital Basel are investigating an alternative treatment method to beta blockers for patients with atrial fibrillation, a type of cardiac arrhythmia. (See the box for more examples of funded projects.)
Evaluation committee that includes patients
The SNSF has supported a total of 63 clinical studies through the IICT programme since its launch in 2016. Once again, six patients helped select the best projects for this call for proposals. What started as a pilot project in 2021 is now standard procedure. Discussions with these six individuals proved to be very helpful, as they contributed the perspectives and specific needs of those affected.
The next call for proposals is already underway. Researchers announced their intention to participate in May 2025. They now have until 4 November 2025 to submit their applications.
Three of the funded projects
- Paediatric heart failure is a condition that places a considerable burden on both the children affected and the healthcare system. The research team led by Sebastiano Lava and Stefano Di Bernardo at Lausanne University Hospital aims to investigate the efficacy and safety of treatment with the drug empagliflozin, which has proven effective in adults. The rarity of the disease in children makes conventional study designs impossible. Novel research methods using artificial intelligence are therefore being tested.
- Optimal pain management for cancer patients is the goal of a study conducted by Christopher Böhlke's research team at the University Hospital Basel (USB) from Jan Gärtner's research group (Department of Clinical Research USB and Palliative Care Centre at Bethesda Hospital). The study aims to show how non-opioid analgesics can effectively complement opioid therapy. The researchers expect that this will enable opioid doses to be reduced while at the same time improving pain control. The findings from the study will be incorporated into treatment guidelines as quickly as possible and could improve pain management for many patients. The study is being conducted on a multicentre basis in collaboration with co-applicants Sophie Pautex (Geneva University Hospital), Tanja Fusi-Schmidhauser (Palliative and Supportive Care Clinic IOSI-EOC), Marcus Vetter (Cantonal Hospital Baselland) and Tobias Schneider (USB).
- According to the latest findings, the drug empagliflozin, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes and heart failure, may also be suitable for preventing the recurrence of kidney stones. The research team led by Daniel Guido Fuster from University Hospital Bern is investigating the effectiveness of this treatment in combination with personalised nutritional advice.