The IMI Stakeholder Forum 2018 will take place on Wednesday 24 October in Brussels, Belgium. The theme this year is ’The value of cross-sectoral health research and innovation’. The event also offers an opportunity to celebrate IMI’s 10th anniversary.
Programme
This year we will be looking at IMI through the lens of cross-sector collaboration, and discussing the added value of technology convergence to address complex health challenges, especially in those areas where there is huge public health need.
IMI has already attracted other industries and funders to collaborate as part of a new ecosystem for health research. To date, 24 companies from sectors such as medical technologies, diagnostics, imaging and digital have joined EFPIA as Partners in Research with the sole aim of participating in IMI. In addition, 15 Associated Partners have joined IMI, including BMGF, JDRF, the Wellcome Trust, Autism Speaks, and Simons Foundation. The IMI Associated Partners have collectively contributed around EUR 100 million to our projects in areas such as diabetes, infectious disease, and autism. Furthermore, 2017 saw the launch of the first IMI Call topic led by BioMerieux and involving 5 diagnostic companies. The time has therefore come to take a step further and decide collectively on how best to combine the knowledge within academia, different industrial sectors, health technology assessment (HTA) bodies, regulators, patient groups and public health authorities to impact health systems.
During the morning, we will look into the future. We will discuss where we could collectively collaborate, and who we need in the IMI partnership to contribute to delivering the impact expected from EU citizens, knowing that working in silos -each trying to prove value for a particular part of the ecosystem- is doomed to failure.
In the afternoon, we will start by looking at ways to embrace technology convergence to optimise health research, before focusing in on the neurological disease area to see how we can collectively apply the collaborative approach in practice to make a real difference to patients and healthcare systems.
Draft agenda
Please find here the draft agenda.
This event will bring together high-level speakers from the digital industry/med-tech and patient organisations.
Registration
Registration for the Stakeholder Forum is free but obligatory. The registration will close on 14 October.