Contribution by NIHR CRF-supported staff to the wider research community
Professor Andrea Cipriani, Director of the CRF and cross-cutting theme lead of Data Science of the Oxford Health BRC2 leads the new transatlantic partnership with Toronto. This transatlantic partnership will enhance existing relationships between the universities and the two healthcare providers.
The new transatlantic partnership with Toronto will enable the development of key structures to facilitate collaboration and help realise the benefits of the complementary capabilities of the participating organisations.
The PATTERN study is an example of collaboration between the CRF, Oxford Health BRC, and Biotekna SRL. This study will use two non-invasive devices (PPG stress flow and BIA-ACC) to measure various physiological parameters in people with mental illness (n = 1000) compared to people without a psychiatric diagnosis.

Angelini Pharma has awarded OHFT (Chief Investigator: Professor Andrea Cipriani) funds for the project ‘Evaluation of telepsychiatry during COVID-19 pandemic: an international feasibility study across the lifespan within the NHS’.
Links and strategic collaborations with industry
Industry collaborations: Akrivia, Angelini Pharma, AstraZeneca, Biogen, Biotekna, Boehringer Ingleheim, Cambridge Cognition, Covance, Exprodo, GSK, IXICO, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, J&J Innovation, Lilly, Lundbeck, Merck, Mezurio, Novavax, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, P1vital Ltd, P1vital Products Ltd, Roche, Sanofi.
The Oxford Health CRF and the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry have a partnership with Akrivia Health, a University of Oxford spin-out company that manages the UK-CRIS network of eleven NHS Trusts who all contribute data to the UK’s largest mental health data repository. Akrivia Health provides infrastructure and data science expertise to enrich this vast and complex database of 2.7 million patients which is then used for clinical trial and research projects.

A strategic partnership with Janssen is underway where trials in depression are partnering with Akrivia to deliver the study across two sites.