The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is a partnership between the European Union (represented by the European Commission) and the European pharmaceutical industry (represented by EFPIA, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations). IMI facilitates open collaboration in research to advance the development of, and accelerate patient access to, personalised medicines for the health and wellbeing of all, especially in areas of unmet medical need. IMI is the world’s biggest public-private partnership (PPP) in the life sciences. Through the IMI2 programme, a budget of €3.3 billion budget for the period 2014-2020 is available.
Who is it for?
IMI projects involve the entire value chain of health care research. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Research organisations
- Hospitals and care centres
- Patient’s organisations
- SMEs
- Regulatory agencies
- Health technology assessment bodies
Priorities and current calls
Major axes of research
- Target validation and biomarker research (efficacy and safety)
- Adoption of innovative clinical trial paradigms
- Innovative medicines
- Patient-tailored adherence programmes.
Health priorities (as defined in the Strategic Research Agenda)
- Antimicrobial resistance
- Osteoarthritis
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Diabetes
- Neurodegenerative diseases
- Psychiatric diseases
- Respiratory diseases
- Immune-mediated diseases
- Ageing-associated diseases
- Cancer
- Rare/orphan diseases
- Vaccines
Calls
EFPIA companies or the strategic governing group submit ideas for calls that fit the current research priorities cited above. Further details can be found on the IMI webpage.
How to apply?
The application process shares many similarities with the societal challenges calls in Horizon 2020. However, the call texts are generally much more detailed and give very precise instructions about the scope and implementation of the call.
- In phase 1, the applicant forms a consortium of public and private (SME) partners and submits a short proposal (How to find partners). The phase 1 proposals are evaluated by independent experts and only the highest ranking consortium proceeds to phase 2.
- In phase 2, the winning consortium is fused with a consortium of EFPIA companies that support this call and that provide significant in kind contributions to the budget. This larger consortium together writes the full proposal that is again evaluated by independent experts.
Success stories from Luxembourg
The following IMI projects have Luxembourgish participants (status 01.08.2018), with a total contribution of €7.3M.
Luxembourg is currently one of the most successful member states in IMI with a success rate of 45%:
- PHARMA-COG (Alzheimer Europe)
- EMIF (Alzheimer Europe)
- eTRIKS (University of Luxembourg)
- AETIONOMY (Alzheimer Europe, University of Luxembourg)
- EPAD (Alzheimer Europe)
- CANCER-ID (IBBL)
- INNODIA (Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg)
- AMYPAD (Alzheimer Europe)
- MOPEAD (Alzheimer Europe)
- ROADMAP (Alzheimer Europe)
- LITMUS (IBBL)
- PARADIGM (Alzheimer Europe, Forum des Patients Européens)
- FAIRplus (University of Luxembourg)
- RADAR-AD (Alzheimer Europe)
For further questions please contact Françoise Liners, Member of the States Representatives Group (SRG) or Charles Betz, Deputy Member of the States Representatives Group (SRG).
IMI Open calls Annual workprogramme Intellectual property in IMI