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In the midst of RExPO24, we managed to catch up with conference co-chairs Harald Schmidt (REPO4EU Project Coordinator) and Jennifer Martin (Chair of Clinical Pharmacology at University of Newcastle). 

During our conversation with them, we found out more about their decision to join forces for this year’s conference, how their collaboration is helping to build bridges between Europe and Australasia, and how the RExPO series is positively contributing to the drug repurposing community worldwide.

Hi Harald and Jennifer! Congratulations on the success of RExPO24. Tell us, what made you decide to join forces this year?

Harald: I contacted Jennifer because bringing repurposed drugs to patients isn’t something you can just do in Europe, it has to be commercially viable worldwide. Not many countries are heavily exploring drug repurposing like Australia is, and Jennifer’s experience with that has been particularly intense and relevant. So, we connected and decided to put our experiences in common, which led us to hosting this year’s conference together with one goal in mind: to continue driving innovation in medicine and health science.

Jennifer: Yes, that’s right! When Harald contacted us about this meeting, we were thrilled. Often, we feel like the “little brother down under,” and having the big voice of Europe working with us gives the whole drug repurposing mission some gravitas. It shows that this is a safe and innovative approach, and like Harald said, one that would struggle to go ahead unless we work closely together across multiple countries and disciplines.

What are the potential benefits of this European-Australasian collaboration?

Harald: As part of REPO4EU, one of our objectives is to grow a global network of specialists that champion mechanism-based approaches for drug repurposing. We’re bringing together researchers, clinicians, startups, patient groups and policymakers from all over the world, and working closely with Jennifer and her team in Australia directly contributes to this mission. It’s very crucial for us to engage in the political side as well, because drug repurposing decisions are made country by country, so we cannot be working in isolation; drug repurposing has the capacity to bring amazing opportunities for patients, so we need to continue working hand-in-hand to push for changes in how these decisions are made.

Jennifer: Absolutely! We’ve had this need in Australia and New Zealand for a few years, and our team has become quite impatient with how long it’s taking to get a proper pathway. We have clinical groups and researchers doing great work, but we can’t use it in a clinical setting because treatments need to be tested for safety, quality and efficacy. They also need public subsidies because people can’t afford them otherwise. So, we’ve spent a lot of energy advocating for this and showing our regulators that we can produce safe outcomes for patients with these treatments. Joining a big initiative like RExPO offers us opportunities for collaboration and relationship building between scientists and clinicians in both regions, so we can hopefully move things forward faster — but always with the patients’ safety and wellbeing at the center.

This is the third edition of the conference. What are the key aspects that have stood out for you, compared to previous years?

Harald: I remember the first year, when we hosted it in Maastricht, the big majority of the speakers were members of the REPO4EU consortium. For the second edition, which was celebrated in Stockholm, we started seeing more people approaching us to speak at the conference. This time in Munich, I would say about 80% of speakers are from the outside, which shows me that the idea is catching on and gaining validation within the drug repurposing community. 

Jennifer: One of the good things about this conference is the diversity of skills demonstrated throughout the program. For example, this year we’ve seen even more interesting adaptive design trials and AI tools that could help us study drugs more efficiently. This kind of innovation helps overcome barriers, like the high cost of including thousands of patients in trials. Listening to all the talks has been very inspiring, and this exchange of knowledge will help to empower other researchers to improve their own processes.

Harald: Another main point is that we keep seeing more and more success stories, where clinicians and companies are achieving tangible results and bringing new benefits for patients. We’ve also made a conscious decision to engage more actively with patient organizations, particularly those for rare diseases, and being able to dedicate a whole session of the conference to this area has been very rewarding.

Jennifer: Yes, the engagement from consumer groups, pharmaceutical industry, and young researchers has also been incredible this year. It’s exciting to see the future of drug research being shaped by these enthusiastic and innovative minds.

One of the big highlights of this year’s conference was the launch of the Drug Repurposing Journal, in collaboration with ScienceOpen. What can you tell us about this milestone?

Harald: It’s been really wonderful getting to work with Stephanie Dawson and the ScienceOpen team on this, and we were very excited to announce the first issue in front of all the RExPO24 attendees. The Drug Repurposing Journal is diamond open access, which means no one has to pay to read it or to publish their research in it. It still goes through a thorough editorial and peer-reviewing process, but making it fully accessible to researchers working in drug repurposing from all over the world. I think this transparency that we’re bringing to the scientific publishing community is very refreshing.

Jennifer: I read the first edition of the journal and it’s fantastic! It includes interactive discussions and, because it’s open access, it allows for real dialogue about current research being conducted in our field. This journal marks a return to the roots of scientific research where ideas are openly discussed and debated, which helps to ensure our research is directed towards real-world benefits.

RExPO24, the 3rd edition of our international series of conferences dedicated to Systems Medicine, Artificial Intelligence and Drug Repurposing, took place in Munich on 3-5 July 2024. Visit the conference highlights page!

RExPO is back! Our annual conference on Systems Medicine, AI and Drug Repurposing will be celebrating its 3rd edition in Munich, on 3-5 July, co-chaired by: Harald Schmidt, Professor and Chair of Pharmacology at Maastricht University & REPO4EU Project Coordinator; and Jennifer Martin, Chair of Clinical Pharmacology at University of Newcastle in Australia.

With barely a month before the big event, we’ve decided to speak with this year’s co-chairs to hear directly from them what we can expect from RExPO24.

Hi Harald! Tell us, why have we chosen Munich to host RExPO24?

We’re going to Munich this year because it’s a major biotech hub in Europe, with many universities, hospitals and research organizations that are very translationally oriented. This third edition of our annual conference goes head to head with the BayOConnect Forum, an event organized by the Bavarian Biotech Cluster Development (BioM) which will attract a lot of SMEs that are currently translating their research work into patient application. 

We’ve prepared a handover session with them, so when BayOConnect finishes on the 3rd of July they will pass the baton to us to officially kick off RExPO24 on that same afternoon, with a joint session fully dedicated to AI for drug repurposing and precision medicine.

What are some of the main themes we’ll be covering this year?

Our 3-day conference will be mostly dedicated to highlighting the latest research on bioinformatics applied to rare diseases, cancer and neurological diseases, and this year we also have a strong focus on regulatory and reimbursement processes and policies within the field of pharma innovation. I highly recommend people to check the conference agenda and the list of confirmed speakers, because we have many top-notch voices from all over the world!

Everything we’ll be discussing during RExPO24 ties in with a common thread: the application of AI tools to build a mechanistic approach to drug repurposing for the advancement of systems medicine globally. From our side, as a European consortium, we’re also very excited to introduce the first clinical results from REPO4EU, which we will be presenting alongside the features we’ve developed so far for our drug repurposing platform.

Jennifer, you attended RExPO23 in Stockholm as a speaker and now you’re coming back as Co-chair! What caught your attention from last year’s experience that made you excited about co-chairing the conference this year?

What was really exhilarating for me last year was getting to meet so many people from around the globe who were working in different aspects of drug repurposing. I was also very intrigued by the developments and applications of Artificial Intelligence applied to this field, as it’s not an area I’ve had a lot of experience in, so attending RExPO helped me understand the opportunities that AI might bring to this whole platform. And I can see that this year’s program got heaps more of AI, so I’m looking forward to catching up on all the latest developments that have happened since last October.

Also, like Harald mentioned, the reimbursement and regulation aspects are very important too, especially for clinical researchers who really want to get a drug through the repurposing process to be used in the clinical practice. So I’m very happy we’ll be spending some time this year focusing on this too. I’m genuinely super excited about the conference coming up in Munich and co-chairing it with Harald, and I hope to see many known and new faces there!

So, Harald, what can people expect from attending RExPO24? Can you give us a quick summary of what we can look forward to in Munich?

Be ready for 3 days packed with talks! But this is not like your usual medical conference, all our sessions will be very focused and dynamic. We know professors can talk about anything for hours, myself included, but for our conference we’ve asked all our speakers to compress their insights and knowledge into 15-minute presentations. Each session will be followed up by extensive discussion rounds, where the audience will be able to ask questions to the panelists. Apart from the main talks, we will also have brief poster presentations and we’ll be giving out a Young Investigator Award to one of the brilliant young scientists joining us for the conference. 

We will of course have the usual coffee and tea breaks, but this time we will make it more fun! Because the EURO2024 championship is being held at the same time in Germany, we’ve planned a little football competition (soccer for our American and Australian friends) – I don’t want to give out too many details yet, as it will be a nice surprise, but all I’ll say is that you may be able to win the official ball of the European championship…

Overall, you can expect to meet many researchers, professors, scientists, patient advocates and entrepreneurs working at the forefront of global innovations to redefine the way we do medicine, once and for all. So, if you’re working or are interested in novel applications of drug repurposing, this conference is for you!