The spotlight shone brightly on Australia’s position as a global leader in clincial trials at the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA) 2022 Clinical Trials: National Tribute and Awards Ceremony, held on Friday 20 May 2022.
From a national pool of exceptional collaborative, multicentre, investigator-driven and impactful trial nominations, 4 major awards were presented for trials demonstrating significant and positive impacts for patients. These award winning trials and their subsequent impact on health outcomes successfully highlight the exceptional breadth of trial activity and expertise in Australia.
Coinciding with International Clincial Trials Day, these awards were established in 2016 to highlight the outstanding Australian achievements that advance clinical practice and save or improve the lives of patients every year.
The 2022 ACTA award winners were:
Winner – ACTA Trial of the Year Award
REMAP-CAP: Randomised, Embedded, Multifactorial Adaptive Platform trial for Community-Acquired Pneumonia
This trial employed a novel design to simultaneously evaluate potential treatments, and efficiently and rapidly generate evidence, which had a significant impact on the care of critical patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Winner – ACTA STInG Excellence in Trial Statistics Award
The PADDI Trial: The Perioperative Administration of Dexamethasone and Infection – The PADDI Trial
This trial presented that dexamethasone can be safely administered to patients to prevent nausea and vomiting when undergoing surgery, without concern about wound infections.
Winner – ACTA Consumer Involvement Award
EMPOWER-SMS: Text messages to improve women’s self-efficacy, quality of life and health outcomes after breast cancer treatment: EMPOWER-SMS randomised clinical trial
This trial evaluated the reach and usefulness of a lifestyle-focused text message intervention to support women’s mental and physical health after breast cancer treatment.
Winner – ACTA Industry Partnership Award
Better Knee, Better Me: Effectiveness of two scalable health care interventions supporting self-management for knee osteoarthritis – a randomized controlled trial
This partnership, between the University of Melbourne and Medibank, saw the design and evaluation of two new programs for people with knee osteoarthritis, which were highly rated by participants and health professionals for their effectiveness, simplicity and convenience.
ACTA CEO, Dr Stewart Hay shared: “The caliber and breadth of our 2022 award winners and nominees illustrates the expertise, experience and enthusiasm for conducting clincial trials in Australia”.
“As an industry body, ACTA is committed to supporting and advocating for trial teams to ensure they can continue their great work in providing the community with access to life-changing trials”.
“These awards provide yet another reminder of why our work is so important for the sector and patient care,” said Dr Hay.
Prof Steve Webb ACTA’s Board Chair and the lead Investigator of the ACTA 2022 Trial of The Year award echoed these sentiments, “The number of clinical trials being led by Australians, and being undertaken globally, is growing year on year, and the quality of nominations for the 2022 ACTA Awards showed that our nation’s trial efforts have also never been stronger”.
“As an ICU clinician I have seen the lifesaving impact of our own REMAP-CAP Trial firsthand, but it was evident that all trial nominees shared ACTA’s vision of Better health outcomes through best evidence”, said Prof Webb.
“It is such a humbling and important time to be involved in clinical trials,” he added.
ACTA announced the winners at their sixth annual awards ceremony in Sydney that coincided with International Clincial Trials Day. The event included esteemed guests The Hon Brad Hazzard, MP Minister for Health (NSW) and Prof Anne Kelso AO, CEO, NHMRC.
