NIHR announce funding through the “Application Development Award” scheme for a study which will “accelerate the necessary learning and preparation to explore the feasibility of a phase 2 platform study” into the treatment and management of post-acute infection syndromes, including long COVID and ME/CFS.
The study should aim to establish the optimum approach for a phase 2 platform study which is able to assess “multiple repurposed pharmaceutical interventions and/or non-pharmacological interventions and devices”.
The funding opportunity closes on the 2nd of December 2025 at 1:00 pm.
What is a platform study?
Platform trials are complex studies which allow multiple different treatments to be evaluated at the same time. Unlike traditional clinical trials, platform trials are open ended, meaning that new interventions can be added as time goes on, without needing to specify what the treatment may be at the start of the project.
Platform studies also allow the control group, or “usual care” group to be updated over time. So, if “the platform trial shows a drug it’s testing to be much more effective that ‘usual care’, then that drug can be rolled out to benefit patients right away and become the new ‘usual care’ against which all new drugs are tested in the trial, creating a potential cycle of improvement.”
Notably, platform trials are thought to be disease focused – assessing what is the best drug for a certain disease – rather than intervention focussed – investigating whether a particular drug is better than standard care or a placebo.
What does phase 2 mean?
Clinical trials – and platform trials – which test new treatments have several phases:
| Phase | Description |
| 0 | Done to make sure a low dose of the medication isn’t harmful to humans before researchers start using it in higher doses for later trial phases. Phase 0 uses a very small number of participants, usually fewer than 15. |
| 1 | Aims to figure out the highest dose of the medication that humans can take without serious side effects. Phase 1 trials monitor 20 to 80 participants who have no underlying health conditions over several months. |
| 2 | Involves several hundred participants who are living with the disease that the new medication is meant to treat. In this phase, participants are usually given the same dose that was found to be safe in the previous phase, and monitored over several months or years to assess safety and efficacy. Importantly, while phase 2 trials involve more participants than earlier phases, they are still not large enough to demonstrate the overall safety of a medication. Rather, data collected in this phase helps researchers design a phase 3 trial. |
| 3 | Here, the new medication is evaluated alongside any existing medications for the same condition. Phase 3 involves up to 3,000 participants who have the disease that the new medication is meant to treat. To move forward with the trial, investigators need to demonstrate that the medication is at least as safe and effective as existing treatment options. |
| 4 | Phase 4 clinical trials happen after the medication has been approved. This phase involves thousands of participants and can last for many years. Investigators use this phase to get more information about the medication’s long-term safety, effectiveness, and any other benefits. |
For this funding call, NIHR are asking investigators to prepare an application for research which will allow them to develop a phase 2 platform to assess potential treatment and management strategies for post acute infection syndromes, including ME/CFS. To help prospective applicants, the NIHR Innovation Observatory (NIHRIO) has provided an overview of UK-licensed medicines being repurposed for the treatment of ME/CFS, long COVID, and fibromyalgia. .
NIHR state that:
“We are keen to accelerate progress in the treatment and management of post-acute infection syndromes and associated conditions, including long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). This funding opportunity is a key component of the NIHR’s recognition of the need for further research-based evidence related to the diagnosis, management and treatment of post-acute infections and associated conditions.”
“Applications to this funding opportunity must aim to accelerate the development of an applicationfor a phase 2 platform study to evaluate repurposed pharmaceutical interventions and/or non-pharmaceutical interventions including digital/devices, for the management and treatment of post-acute infections and associated condition”
NIHR explain that they recognise that developing such an application for a phase 2 platform represents “a complex bid, which will require time and the navigation of specific challenges”. As such they are offering an Application Development Award (ADA) of up to £200,000 over a maximum of 18 months.
While this funding is not specifically for ME/CFS research, ME/CFS is included as a named disease within “post acute infection syndromes”.
