Call for proposals

Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 – 10th Call for proposals – H2020-JTI-IMI2-2016-10-TWO-STAGE

Objectives and description

Innovative Medicines Initiatives - IMI is a partnership between the EU and the European pharmaceutical industry, represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

The Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2) Joint Undertaking has been created following the principles below:

·         Research related to the future of medicine should be undertaken in areas where societal, public health and biomedical industry competitiveness goals are aligned and require the pooling of resources and greater collaboration between the public and private sectors, with the involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs);

·         The scope of the initiative should be expanded to all areas of life science research and innovation;

·         The areas should be of public health interest, as identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) report on priority medicines for Europe and the World.

In this framework, it has been published the 10th Call for Proposals under the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (IMI 2). The goal of the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI 2) is to develop next generation vaccines, medicines and treatments, such as new antibiotics. It will build on the successes and lessons learnt under IMI. Like IMI, it will bring together companies, universities, public laboratories, innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), patient groups and regulators in collaborative projects that will pave the way for breakthrough vaccines, medicines and treatments to tackle Europe’s growing health challenges, and secure the future international competitiveness of Europe’s pharmaceutical industry.

The 10th Call for Proposals for IMI 2 refers to the following topics:

• IMI2-2016-10-01: Understanding hypoglycaemia: the underlying mechanisms and addressing clinical determinants as well as consequences for people with diabetes by combining databases from clinical trials

The overarching objective of this call topic is to reduce the risk and burden of hypoglycaemia and, as a consequence, ultimately improve glycaemic control in people with diabetes.

• IMI2-2016-10-02: How Big Data could support better diagnosis and treatment outcomes for Prostate Cancer

This call topic aims to address the scarcity of epidemiologic, clinical, genomic/biomarker, economic, patient reported outcome, and humanistic data on the treatment path of prostate cancer including all stages of the disease; leverage real-life data on patients from different European countries, using existing registries, trial data, and data from prostate cancer specialized centres as well as data from patient groups.

• IMI2-2016-10-03: Improving the care of patients suffering from acute or chronic pain

The goal of this Topic is to make advances in three pain areas in a complementary manner. These three Subtopics, each of which addresses a specific scientific challenge, together offer significant opportunities for cross-fertilisation:

Subtopic 3A: using Patient Reported Outcome Measures to improve the management of acute and chronic pain (PROMs);

Subtopic 3B: improving the translatability of pharmacodynamic biomarkers in pain pathways of healthy subjects and preclinical species (BIOM);

Subtopic 3C: improving translation in chronic pelvic pain (CPP).

• IMI2-2016-10-04: Creation of a pan-European Paediatric Clinical Trials Network

The overall vision of this topic is to create a large collaborative paediatric network that facilitates the development and availability of new drugs and other therapies, and the expansion of knowledge about drugs currently in practice for the entire paediatric population.

• IMI2-2016-10-05: Biomanufacturing 2020: Development of Innovative high throughput analytical tools and methods to characterize cell culture fluid during development and commercial cell culture processes

The overall objective is to develop/determine the best high throughput or novel analytical and/or feedback control methods/tests to be used for the parameters that need to be measured during manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, in particular the cell culture.

• IMI2-2016-10-06: Unlocking the Solute Carrier Gene-Family for Effective New Therapies (Unlock SLCs)

This topic aims to unlock the therapeutic potential within the SLC gene family by overcoming many of the technical barriers that have hindered their study and prevented their exploitation as drug targets by generating research tools and by making them freely available to the scientific community.

• IMI2-2016-10-07: Patient perspectives in medicines lifecycle

This project represents an opportunity to enable patients to better provide their perspectives - in qualitative and quantitative terms - in the medicines pathways from discovery to outcomes monitoring and beyond. 

• IMI2-2016-10-08: Personalised medicine approaches in autism spectrum disorders

This project offers a unique opportunity to create a European-wide research strategy in collaboration and in alignment with US-based efforts that overcome key bottlenecks in the development and testing of treatments for ASD. It will build the necessary capacity, within Europe, for the conduct of future trials, while also contributing towards a more unified approach to research in ASD within Europe in the clinical sciences.

Eligible participants - Minimum conditions

The topics refer to Research and Innovation Actions, thus the eligible partners are: at least three legal entities established in a different Member State or associated country. All three legal entities shall be independent of each other.

The following participants are eligible for funding under the IMI 2:

·         Independent legal entities established in a Member State or an Associated Country, or created under Union law and which fall within one of the following categories:

1.     micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and other companies with an annual turnover of EUR 500 million or less;

2.     secondary and higher education establishments;

3.     non-profit organisations, including those carrying out research or technological development as one of their main objectives or those that are patient organisations;

·         the Joint Research Centre;

·         international European interest organisations

EU funding may be granted to international organisations and legal entity established in a third country provided that at least one of the following conditions is fulfilled:

a)     the participation is deemed essential for carrying out the IMI2 JU action;

b)    such funding is provided for under a bilateral scientific and technological agreement or any other arrangement between the Union and the international organisation or, for entities established in third countries, the country in which the legal entity is established.

Funding conditions and duration

The overall indicative budget for this call for proposals is 348.030.000 EUR, covered by the IMI2 JU and the EFPIA companies.

The indicative duration of each action is from 30 to 72 months, depending on the topic.

Deadline of proposals' submission

The deadline for the submission of proposals Stage 1 is on 28 March 2017 17:00:00 Brussels time, while the deadline for the Stage 2 is on 14 September 2017, 17:00:00 Brussels time.

Please note that entering and submitting short proposals for this Call can only be done through the electronic submission system of the Horizon 2020 Participant Portal. 

Further information

Please find attached the call documentation.

IMI Partner Search Tool: http://www.imi.europa.eu/content/partner-search

IMI rules and procedures WEBINAR - 13 January 2017, 14:00 Central European Time (Brussels time) Registration open at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3200342277397832706

More information: http://www.imi.europa.eu/content/imi-2-call-10 and/or http://tinyurl.com/gstadfo

Kind regards,

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE CALLS IS PROVIDED AT REQUEST OF ANY INTERESTED MEMBER (based on the decision of 22.12.2016 of the EOC Administrative Council).