Newcastle University (on behalf of Conect4Children)

c4c (conect4children) is a large collaborative European network that aims to facilitate the development of new drugs and other therapies for the entire paediatric population. It is a pioneering opportunity to build capacity for the implementation of multinational paediatric clinical trials whilst ensuring the needs of babies, children, young people and their families are met. c4c is committed to meeting the needs of paediatric patients thanks to a novel collaboration between the academic and the private sectors, which includes 35 academic and 10 industry partners and around 500 affiliated partners. c4c endeavours to provide a sustainable, integrated platform for the efficient and swift delivery of high quality clinical trials in children and young people across all conditions and phases of the drug development process. c4c strives to bring innovative processes to all stages of clinical development by generating a new model of organization and of the clinical development process. By emphasizing inclusiveness and collaboration across geographical, specialty, sectoral, cultural and societal backgrounds, it will set up a new infrastructure to support all evaluations of medicines in children. In this manner, it will become a benchmark in the currently fragmented European clinical research environment. Best practices and up-to-date expert advice will inform the c4c approaches and methods, which will subsequently be refined in the context of viability trials.