Financial Report & Highlights 2020

The global COVID-19 pandemic and its extensive worldwide impact has also influenced the financial situation of EBMT in 2020. After the coronavirus breakout, a contingency plan was developed to secure staff positions and strategic investments. This has allowed us to build some reserves in order to face present and future uncertainties. We were able to improve the financial figures after closing a fair deal with the Madrid suppliers and hotels after canceling the face-to-face Annual Meeting. Additional aid also came during the last quarter of the year when new study contracts were signed. The EBMT organisational structure and creation of income for scientific and educational projects is pictured below. Moreover, in 2020 the EBMT’s Finance Department obtained an “unqualified opinion” from an independent auditor’s judgement bureau, affirming that EBMT is maintaining its high standard of modern management, sustaining its financial stability, and spending and allocating money to our mission.

Spending our financial resources on our missions

Our steady annual income has been used to strengthen our growing organization as a whole. For 2020, the budget needed for management and administration (i.e., Board and Executive Office expenses) increased to 19.2% which allocates 80.8% to our scientific studies, registry, accreditation and education like the 2020 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 balanced financial roadmap

In 2020, the main challenge we faced was securing all staff positions while further optimising a well-balanced financial COVID-19 contingency plan and roadmap for the future of EBMT. Our goal was to be able to cover all financial challenges in line with our ambitions but also provide a strong backbone for the organisation. Therefore, the EBMT Board decided to partially release its allocated reserves in 2020 (580,000€) to support our organisational for the next few years which covers the following topics and areas:

Shifting to our virtual meetings

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic we had to transform our annual face-to-face meeting into a virtual meeting for the health and safety of our delegates. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Barcelona office, the first 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 continued in-house operations of successive EBMT educational events really paid off by increasing EBMT’s position and visibility within the virtual arena and by improving financial control.

Adapting the organisational structure

In 2020, we restructured the managerial infrastructure of EBMT into 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. Due to the solid financial situation of EBMT, we were able to sustain all staff positions during the COVID-19 pandemic and finance the new, key positions within the transformed EBMT organisational structure. Further streamlining and restructuring the organigram will continue in 2021 in order to increase the efficiency of EBMT.

Creating the sales department

In 2020, we refined the Sales Department in order to improve the processes of setting up memberships, sponsorships, retrospective and prospective studies in collaboration with pharma, institutions and non-profit organisations as well as marketing and communications. Sponsorships and funded studies are a growing segment of the activities of EBMT and an important financial pillar.

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 CAR T products. Following Novartis, contracts with Kite and Celgene were 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.

EBMT brand positioning and identity

To address our commitment to Cellular therapy within our society, EBMT updated its Mission and Vision and designed a new EBMT logo. For this process we included all the Board Members, the Working Parties, the Nurses Group, the EBMT Staff and also the EBMT Members. And, in the end, there was a mutual agreement and consensus to modify our name, mission, vision as well as our EBMT logo.

Opening a satellite foundation office in Shanghai

The EBMT officially opened a satellite foundation office in Shanghai, China on the 15th of December, 2020. The Shanghai office is the fifth global EBMT office and the only office in the Asia Pacific region.

Updating the EBMT Registry

In 2020, we kept working on migrating the Registry data into MACRO all while continuing to enter transplant and cellular therapy data in ProMISe. This project of migrating to a new 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, the London, Leiden and Paris offices were and are still closely working together on this project under the supervision of the new Registry Director.

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 organisation structure. Current highlights include the successful virtual meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, E-learning opportunities, registry upgrade, new cellular therapy registry, benchmarking system, CAR T PASS studies, staff compensation, information technology innovation, COVID-19 studies and China Foundation office. Despite the financial challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, EBMT will be closing the year 2020 with a positive total result of 2,258 k€ (expenses of 8,259 k€ and a total income of 10,517 k€) thanks to our new study contracts and the use of our reserves.

It has been my pleasure to serve EBMT as Treasurer in 2020 during the global COVID-19 pandemic, and I am excited to continue my tasks in 2021. I would like to express my appreciation for the finance team in the Leiden office, Bas Natkiel, Liesbeth Hoekstra, Erwin Timmers and Rugène Rogers for their hard work and dedication.

Financial Highlights 2020_Nb FTE Employees