A key outcome of the project will be a pan-European clinical trial network capable of recruiting patients and of conducting efficiently high quality multinational trials at all stages of development. Alongside this, the project will also establish a pan-European laboratory network to deliver epidemiological information and data from microbial surveillance work to guide the selection of clinical trial sites.

Crucially, the Combacte team will aim to generate innovative trial designs to facilitate the registration of novel antibacterial agents. It will also design and validate tests to support the diagnosis of patients, identify the most appropriate treatments, and monitor the patient's response. Combacte will test its novel clinical trial designs on drugs under development in the pharmaceutical companies involved in the project, starting with a novel antibiotic that appears to be effective in respiratory and skin infections caused by multi-drug resistant pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

For its part, Translocation will focus its efforts on identifying new ways of getting antibiotics into bacteria and preventing bacteria from expelling the drugs before they can take effect. It will work primarily on Gram-negative pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Drug
resistant Gram-negative bacteria are responsible for two thirds of the 25,000 deaths resulting from antimicrobial resistance reported in Europe annually.