Manchester scientists have established a COVID-19 research rapid response group to bring together the research and innovation strengths of our clinical-academic partnerships in an unprecedented way to focus on this public health crisis.

Scientists within The University of Manchester’s Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health are working with NHS colleagues from Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, supported by Health Innovation Manchester, and utilising our experimental and translational research expertise through the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility.

This brings together the research and innovation strengths of our partnerships in an unprecedented way to focus on this public health crisis. The aims of the COVID-19 research rapid response group are to minimise lives lost nationally and globally, and reduce the impact of the pandemic on Greater Manchester’s health and social care system and the wider community.

The group’s work is focusing on a number of key priorities:

• New treatments
• Disease mechanisms
• Patient assessment
• Social care impact
• Patients with existing health conditions
• Rapid diagnosis
• Prevention/vaccination

In the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the RRRG reviewed 189 projects and the group has worked together in a collaborative way in order to focus on what was most urgent. There has also been a unified, coordinated approach to recruitment to clinical trials and clinical studies across the region. In the first six months of the pandemic more than 8,000 people in Greater Manchester have been part of one of over 70 COVID-19 clinical trials.  The trials have focused on data, observations and treatment to help stop the virus or improve care for patients and have found successful treatments which are now making a difference.

Greater Manchester has also been successful in securing over £4.5million in COVID awards from UKRI to examine a variety of issues relating to the disease and the impact of the pandemic on society. It includes grants for molecular mapping of the virus to stratify disease outcomes, examining the impact of the pandemic on access to social security and employment support and creation of a collection of NHS testimonies about COVID-19.