The mission of the National Center of Affective Disorders (NCAD) is to accomplish research in a highly translational manner, with structures that enable rapid conduct of translational clinical studies using academic as well as industry frameworks in a reliable way. The NCAD aims to extend and implement joint phenotyping protocols (including EMA approaches), biobanks with common standard operating procedures and a common recruitment pipeline. The NCAD will set up a contractual template to speed up regulatory processes and legal negotiations in research. The NCAD intends to be the major Centre in Germany to conduct academic investigator-initiated trials (IIT) and be the main partner to be approached by industry to conduct phase II, -III and -IV clinical studies in affective disorders. Importantly, studies are not limited to drug trials but also include well-controlled studies on neurostimulation and psychotherapy, where the lack of high-level evidence from well-controlled trials is most evident. The NCAD comprises leading institutions in the field of Affective Disorder in Germany. It is an excellent platform for translational approaches and effective recruitment for clinical studies through this unique cooperation.

NCAD Startsymposium/Workshop, 11.10.2022, Frankfurt am Main