Public-Private Partnerships between EC and EFPIA

Under FP7, Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs) have been introduced to realise Public-Private Partnerships in research at European level and IMI is one of the first JTIs. The EC and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) joined forces to set up IMI after the former has identified biomedical research as a strategy priority to enhance the competitiveness of the EU.

The first IMI Call has been published on 30 April 2008.
Opening of period for submitting Expression of Interest  (EoI): 1 June 2008.
Deadline for submission of EoI: 15 July 2008 at 17:00:00 (Brussels local time).
The Call is a two-stage process, the first one being an EoI expressed by scientists from academia, SME, patient organisations and others. One EoI per Call topic will be invited to submit a full project proposal togehter with the EFPIA industry members interested in the topic. In total 18 projects will be financed. Applicants intending to submit an EoI should read carefully the Guide for Applicants, the Call topics, the Rules for Participation, the Rules for Submission, evaluation and selection of EoIs and proposals, the IMI IPR rules and the IMI JU model Grant Agreement (see Call information on IMI website).

IMI will have a total budget of 2billion Euro over 5 years, 1billion Euro is available from the EC from the Health budget in FP7, the other billion is provided by the pharmaceutical industry belonging to EFPIAs Research Directors Group. Public funds will go exclusively to the public sector and SME. Each project has to be a Public-Private Partnership between at least 2 SME or universities and 2 industry partners which are members of EFPIA. The aim of the IMI is not to produce specific treatments but to address the key bottlenecks in the biomedical R&D process.

Overview of the topics for 2008:
(®: number of companies per call topic)

Furthermore the expectations of the public consortium in each topic is explained in detail in the attached presentation from slide 31 onwards.

How to keep informed?
Should you wish to keep up-to-date on IMI and know when the calls are published and what topics they contain then register on our e-Alert system on the Euresearch homepage, select the service e-Alert and keywords under Health. You will receive news on IMI as soon as it is available from the European Commission and EFPIA.

Dr. Sasha Hugentobler, Swiss NCP Health

Links and documents:

Joint Technology Initiatives on Euresearch website
EFPIA website on IMI
European Commission website on IMI
Strategic Research Agenda
Boosting biomedical innovation across Europe brochure
Call submission and evaluation process
IMI Intellectual Property Policy
Euresearch Info February including article on IMI
IMI Governing Board meeting
Comparison funding principles FP7 vs. IMI
Comparison Intellectual Property Rights FP7 vs. IMI

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