Conferenze
The new EU research program: "Innovative medicines Initiative (IMI)"
19 maggio 2008
Department of Pharmacological Sciences, University of Milan
Karima Boubekeur
F.Hoffmann-La Roche
After four years of consultation, the European Commission (EC) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) have jointly funded the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking or IMI JU. The IMI JU is a Community body which will be located in Brussels to manage a budget of € 2 billion. Half of this budget comes from the budget of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union and the other half will be provided in kind by biopharmaceutical companies members of EFPIA. The responsibility of the IMI JU is to efficiently use this budget to sponsor research projects addressing the bottlenecks in the pharmaceutical R&D process. The IMI JU consists of three bodies: a Governing Board, a Scientific Committee and an Executive Director. Based on a 2-stage peer review process research projects will be evaluated and selected every year starting in 2008. The main areas of research are based on the IMI JU Research Agenda which is published on the IMI website (www.imi-europe.org).
The IMI JU Research Agenda has been developed through extensive consultation of all relevant stakeholders from patients groups to regulators and describes specific recommendations organised around four main areas. These areas are Improving the predictivity of safety and efficacy evaluation and closing the gap in Knowledge Management and in Education and Training.
The IMI Call Topics for 2008 address three of these four pillars namely safety, efficacy and education & training. The diseases areas selected for 2008 are diabetes, brain diseases and respiratory diseases.
