HABP/VABP Antibacterial Drug Development (ABDD) trials are particularly challenging to conduct for many reasons, including the length and complexity of the protocol and the challenges associated with the patient population, trial design, data recording, differences in international regulations, and operational concerns. These complications and obstacles have increased HABP/VABP trial costs and slowed ABDD.

ABDD Program: Streamlining Hospital-Acquired and Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia (HABP/VABP) Clinical Trials (2012-2016)

• Identify barriers and seek solutions for the successful conduct of HABP/VABP studies
• Simplify and reduce the amount of (safety) data collected in the HABP/VABP studies
• Build a pilot network of sites to conduct HABP/VABP studies

The ABDD program will facilitate the development of new antibacterial drugs. Specifically, the results from the Streamlining HABP/VABP Trials project will inform better processes and practices to employ in a HABP/VABP study protocol to be tested at participating clinical sites.

• A study protocol using the recommendations developed from the workstreams will show that an innovative approach will work, leading to more ABDD clinical trials, which will eventually lead to more available antibiotics.
• Additionally, streamlining data collection and recording will help accelerate study conduct and reduce the cost associated with excess data collection.

CTTI convened experts and held a series of meetings and workshops to address the following:

• Identify inefficiencies of current protocol elements and data collection processes in ABDD trial conduct.
• Explore novel ideas and issue recommendations on designing scientifically valid, feasible, and clinically meaningful trials to establish the efficacy of antibacterial drugs for the treatment of HABP/VABP.
• Build a pilot network of 45 sites globally (30 U.S. and 15 OUS) with a capability of conducting and implementing the HABP/VABP Studies.

Click on the meeting titles below to view associated materials, including agendas, participant lists, presentations, and summaries:

• Optimizing Operational Efficiencies for Data Collection in HABP/VABP Trials held on Nov. 12, 2013
• Antibacterial Drug Development Working Group Webinar held on Aug. 29, 2013
• Antibacterial Drug Development: Developing a Pilot Protocol for Hospital-Acquired and Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia held on Apr. 22-23, 2013
• Understanding Issues in Antibacterial Drug Development Webinar held on Apr. 18, 2013

Stakeholders from industry, academia, government, and patient groups met to identify areas in need of improvement in HABP/VABP protocols: the protocol design, the informed consent process (to address decisional impairment), use of a single IRB of record, and trial outcomes and endpoints. At expert meetings, stakeholders discussed best practices for defining the enrollment criteria, testing new diagnostics, obtaining informed consent from seriously ill patients, selecting an IRB, and pre-specifying trial endpoints in the protocol. Stakeholders also agreed that safety data collection in the HABP/VABP patient population is challenging and burdensome due to the large number of medical procedures, adverse events, and concomitant medications involved. Additional challenges include protocol complexity and the lack of harmonization in U.S. and EU regulations regarding the conduct of HABP/VABP trials. Expert meeting attendees agreed that utilizing a QbD approach to protocol elements and trial planning is critical to facilitate streamlining of data collection and recording.

Based on this work, CTTI released recommendations for Streamlining Protocol Elements and for Optimizing Operational Efficiency for Safety Data Collection HABP VABP Trials. The recommendations appeared as part of a peer-reviewed supplement in Clinical Infectious Diseases that featured collaborative and innovative approaches by CTTI and others to address challenges associated with HABP/VABP trials.

A part of the Streamlining HABP/VABP project, a working group including key experts, such as infectious diseases and pulmonary/critical care medicine experts, those experienced in designing clinical studies, and patient representatives, was convened to identify a network of sites for future studies. CTTI partnered with the Innovative Medicines Initiative’s Combacte program and their CLIN-net site network to expand the site list. The U.S. and European sites were used for the Risk Factors for HABP/VABP Study.

• Guidance for Industry: Hospital-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia and Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia: Developing Drugs for Treatment, by the FDA, June 2020
• Evaluation of medicinal products indicated for treatment of bacterial infections - Scientific guideline, by the EMA, May 2022

Organization affiliations are listed as active affiliations during the project.

*Indicates former project manager, team leader, or team member.