The multination DEEP project has been launched, a 4-year project aiming to improve the chelation treatment of children with thalassaemia. The primary objectives of the project are to perform pharmacokinetic, efficacy and safety studies of deferiprone in paediatric patients and to provide a new formulation specifically tested for young children. Specifically, DEEP tests pharmacokinetic properties of deferiprone in children under 6 and the efficacy and safety of deferiprone compared to deferasirox therapy in paediatric patients. It further aims to provide long-term data on events potentially related to deferiprone use (alone or in combination with deferoxamine) in children, as observed in a timeframe of 3 years of clinical practice, and to provide a pharmacoeconomic evaluation of deferiprone in the concerned aged group and in comparison with other chelating treatments. The DEEP Consortium is composed of 15 recruiting European Centres (from Italy, Greece, Cyprus) and 7 recruiting non-European Centres (from Egypt, Tunisia, Albania) with scientific partners from the EU and the pharmaceutical group (ApoPharma and APOTEX) based in Canada and in Europe as an industrial partner.