Financial Report & Highlights 2022

During the last four years as EBMT Treasurer, the EBMT substantially secured its financial model, which allowed the investments in strategic mission goals and the creation of a continuous reserve of income for the society, strategic projects and staff positions. As treasurer of our society I am proud that due to the strong financial strategy we endured the financial risks faced in the past years and its extensive worldwide impact. This has allowed us to invest in our strategic mission in 2022 and the next years while building financial reserves in order to face future uncertainties. We were able to close 2022 again with a positive financial result and EBMT continues to invest in its strategic goals in line with its mission. In my four-year period as Treasurer the EBMT has grown to an income of EUR 12,682,000, expenses of EUR 11,276,000, from 59 FTE’s in 2018 to 102 FTE’s in 2022 and EUR 18,500,000 reserves. I leave EBMT in a sound financial situation to cope the new financial challenges of the Strategic Plan 2023-2026.

The EBMT organisational structure and creation of income for scientific and educational projects is pictured below. Moreover, in 2022 the EBMT obtained again an “unqualified opinion” from an independent auditor’s firm, affirming that EBMT is maintaining its high standard of modern management, sustaining its financial stability, and spending and allocating money to our mission.

Spending financial resources on our missions

Our steady annual income has been used to strengthen our growing organization as a whole. For 2022, the budget needed for management and administration (i.e. Board and Executive Office expenses) decreased to 15.9% which allocates 84.1% to our scientific studies, registry, accreditation and education like the 2022 Annual Meeting, E-learning and educational events. Therefore, EBMT remains a very efficient organisation when assessed by international rankings (“A” according to CharityWatch).

Continuing with a balanced financial strategy

In 2022, we continued to secure, improve and increase our staff positions while further optimising EBMT organizations through a well-balanced financial roadmap for the future of EBMT. Our goal was to be able to cover all financial challenges and strategic projects in line with our ambitions but also provide a strong backbone for the organisation. The EBMT Board decided to partially release allocated reserves in 2022 (€437,000) to support our organisation for the next years which covers the following topics and areas.

1. Returning to face-to-face meetings

The provision was that after fading of the COVID-19 pandemic we organized the EBMT annual meeting 2022 as a hybrid face-to-face and virtual meeting. But due to the war in Ukraine we needed to swiftly change for the third time our annual congress to a virtual meeting. Thanks to the great work and dedication of the Barcelona office the 2022 virtual annual meeting was a great success because we were able to maintain the high level of education, the support of our sponsors and the engagement of our delegates. The completed in-housing operations of successive EBMT educational events strengthens the EBMT’s educational positioning and visibility within the virtual arena and by having financial control. Nevertheless, many other EBMT meetings were returning with success to face-to-face meetings such as the International Transplant Course in September 2022 and Working party events. Furthermore, the first face-to-face basic and translational science meeting jointly organized by ASTCT and EBMT in May 2022 in Vail Colorado was a great success.

2. Adapting the organisational structure

In 2022, we further adapted the managerial infrastructure of the EBMT which is structured in six departments Registry, Clinical Research, Education & Events, Advocacy & Quality of Care, Sales & Development and Support. Each department is led by a department Director whom, together with the Executive Director and Medical Officer, form the EBMT Management Team.

In 2022 we continued with improving the Clinical Research, Sales and Support departments in order to increase and streamline the process of setting up memberships, sponsorships, retrospective and prospective studies in collaboration with pharma, institutions and non-profit organizations as well as marketing & communications. The sponsorships and funded studies are a growing segment of the activities of EBMT and important financial pillar for our strategic mission. Furthermore, the EBMT is increasingly recognized as partner in European projects such as the Egalite and EuroTractor project.

Due to the solid financial situation of EBMT, we were able to sustain all staff positions and finance the new, key positions within the transformed EBMT organisational structure. Further streamlining and restructuring the organigram will continue in 2023 in order to increase the efficiency of EBMT.

3. The science fund

In my term as Treasurer, we have developed the EBMT Science Fund and the EBMT Board decided to strategically allocate reserves in this fund to support strategic scientific studies with high priority for the mission goals of EBMT. The first strategic topic included the COVID task force formed to support patients and the EBMT community during the COVID-19 pandemic. All working parties were involved in the COVID task force which was very productive in developing general and vaccination guidelines for patients, donors and the EBMT community, scientific surveys and Covid-19 related scientific studies. In 2022, the EBMT Board decided to support the GoCART studies from the Science fund to financially support the winning CART studies after scientific evaluation within the GoCART coalition. Furthermore, a CART task force has been formed lead by our Medical Officer and all working parties involved. In the next years we will continue to allocate reserves in the Science Fund to support strategic scientific top-priority projects.

4. Continuing the CAR T PASS Studies

After receiving the qualification opinion from EMA regarding the cellular therapy module of the EBMT Registry, the Board decided to raise manpower to support this initiative, which will collect post-market evidence for safety and efficacy of different commercial CART products. Contracts with three big pharma companies have been signed and more companies are likely to follow. The finance support behind these contracts allows for more man-hours to execute these PASS studies and increase the Registry data plus data quality. This registry tool will be helpful for all researchers executing clinical studies with immune effector cells to gather more comprehensive data sets.

5. Updating the EBMT Registry

In 2022, we kept working on building the future Registry into a new IT system while continuing to enter transplant and cellular therapy data in ProMISe, and the CASTOR database to enter CART data for the EBMT and PASS scientific studies. Building of the future Registry platform has the highest financial priority. Reserves have been earmarked to cover all expected costs. In addition, reserves are being used and held for any unexpected expenses. Furthermore, all EBMT offices were and are still closely working together on this project under the supervision of the Executive Director and the CRD Department.

6. JACIE returning to live inspections

JACIE, after the pandemic, had clear challenges to resolve. However, I have already seen a high level of enthusiasm and commitment of everyone involved to find solutions to these challenges and current processes. Their work does not go unnoticed. The JACIE team completed 68 full inspections out of the 80 initially expected. Moving forward, the second EBMT benchmarking exercise has paved the way for a second manuscript still pending to be published. Yet, the feasibility, acceptability and reliability of the system has been supported and the limitations have been identified. I cannot wait to see the impact JACIE and its team will have in 2023.

Financial conclusion

The ongoing positive financial development of the organisation over the past years has allowed EBMT to further build on its strategic goals and improve its organisational structure. Current highlights include the successful virtual and face-to-face educational and scientific meetings, increasing E-learning opportunities, registry upgrade, cellular therapy registry, benchmarking system, CART PASS studies, staff compensation and human resource management, information technology innovation and building the Science Fund. In spite of the financial challenges, EBMT will be closing the year 2022 with a positive total result of EUR 1,406,000 (expenses of EUR 11,276,000 and a total income of EUR 12,682,000) thanks to the fantastic work of the EBMT staff, community and the use of our financial reserves.

It has been my very pleasure to serve and guide EBMT as Treasurer during the last four years. I would like to express my appreciation to the Executive Director Andreu Gusi and the finance team in the Leiden office, Bas Natkiel, Liesbeth Hoekstra, Erwin Timmers and Sudy Anne Pourier for their hard work and dedication to EBMT. Behind all the EBMT activities you make sure that we have a solid financial system!

At the time of the report release date (April 24, 2023), the audit process is pending completion