28 October 2021

The coming year will mark the end of the first five years of functioning of the European Reference Networks (ERNs). However, there are good reasons to think that the ERNs will continue to exist after this first five tears period. Euro-NMD together with the ERN RND (focused on rare neurological diseases) and EpiCARE (focused on rare epilepsies) has started to plan the work for the next 5 years exploring synergies across these ERNs.

The three ERNs have in common a neurological focus and are thus collaborating in small working groups on cross cutting themes, e.g. a joint training curriculum, next generation sequencing applied to diagnostic, gene therapy policies, registries, approaches to mitochondrial diseases, amongst others. The expected outcomes will be in the form of policy recommendations and will strength the inter ERN collaboration with the aim of improving patient care.