On May 6th 2014, the European Council adopted the Regulation of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI2) public-private partnership, the joint undertaking between the European Union and European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) that will replace IMI.
The IMI is a public-private partnership between the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and will replace and succeed IMI Joint Undertaking.
IMI2 contains within its objectives the reduction of the failure rate of vaccine candidates in phase III clinical trials through new biomarkers for initial efficacy and safety checks. Both in vivo and in vitro potential biomarkers could potentially fall within the remit of this objective. Additionally, IMI2 will also aim to advance trends in personalised medicines which may generate further interest and support for the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH). These objectives signal a departure from the current ‘one size fits all’ approach of current healthcare to enable medical interventions to be tailored, to be more effective and have fewer undesirable side effects for individual patients.
Funding: The total budget proposed for IMI 2 is €3.45 billion. IMI 2 projects will receive up to €1.725 billion of its budget from Horizon 2020, the next EU research and innovation framework programme. EFPIA, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, will commit €1.5 billion in kind contributions consisting of research activities and other resources.
The Process of participating in IMI2 projects will involve the following:
- Open Call for proposals is published on the IMI website, where all interested parties can submit an Expression of Interest.
- The Applicant Consortium of the best Expression of Interest, and the EFPIA consortium already associated to the topic, are invited to form a Full Project Consortium.
- The selected project consortium will be invited to conclude a Grant Agreement governing the relationship between them and IMI.
Next step
- The launch of IMI2 and first Calls for proposals are planned for 9 July 2014.
- On 20 June 2017, the Commission will organize an independent interim evaluation of the IMI2 Joint Undertaking, which will take into consideration the general recommendations provided by the Scientific Panel on Health.
More information is available Council, Commission and EFPIA websites
