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Emily Bongard

BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD


Head of Operations, Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit

  • I oversee the day-to-day activities of the PC-CTU and I am responsible for planning, coordinating and managing resource requirements for the trial portfolio deploying staff effectively and efficiently. I work closely with the leadership team to deliver the PC-CTU strategy and with the Head of Administration and Finance to plan the funding and resources of the PC-CTU.

Previous Experience

I joined the department in 2016 as the Trial Manager for ALIC4E (Antivirals for influenza-Like illness? An rCt of Clinical and Cost effectiveness in primary CarE) with Prof Chris Butler as Chief Investigator. The primary objective was to determine whether adding antiviral treatment to best usual primary care is effective in reducing time to return to usual daily activity. The trial was an open, adaptive-platform, randomised controlled trial, running across 21 networks in 15 European countries. The trial successfully recruited on time and to target (3266 participants), the primary outcome paper has recently been published in The Lancet. The ALIC4E trial was delivered as part of the Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-) emerging Epidemics (PREPARE) European Commission consortium grant.

I progressed to a Programme Manager for the primary care clinical work package of a multi-national European ValueDx project which aims to facilitate and accelerate the rigorous assessment and implementation of diagnostic technologies into healthcare settings, by establishing the infrastructure, methods, processes and approaches needed to understand, evaluate, assess, and demonstrate the multi-faceted value of diagnostics and overcome the associated barriers to their widespread adoption and use. The work package includes a Point Prevalence Audit Survey of the presentation and management of community acquired acute respiratory tract infection in community care in Europe (run in 18 countries over 2 winters from 2019/20). The second part of the work package is the PRUDENCE study, this is a platform randomised controlled trial of point of care diagnostics for enhancing the quality of antibiotic prescribing for community acquired acute respiratory tract infection in ambulatory care in Europe. The ValueDx project is funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking.

I assisted in the set-up and management of the PRINCIPLE and PANORAMIC trials, both national priority trials to find COVID-19 treatments that could be taken at home. These trials are designed to test a range of treatments in the community, with treatment arms that can be stopped, replaced or added and using decentralised/remote recruitment strategies.

Within the CTU I am a tutor and facilitator on the Clinical Trial Management module of the MSc in Evidenced Based Health-Care.

Prior to joining the department I have worked on a number of national and international clinical trials in oncology and infectious diseases within primary and secondary care, from Phase I to IV. I have also completed a PhD at Cardiff University evaluating the patient management and diagnosis of Urinary Tract Infection in primary care.