The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is a European initiative to improve the competitive situation of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

in the field of

pharmaceutical research Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links hea ...

. The IMI is a joint initiative ( public-private partnership) of the DG Research of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

, representing the European Communities, and the

European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) is a Brussels-based trade association and lobbying organisation, founded in 1978 and representing the research-based pharmaceutical industry operating in Europe. Throug ...

(EFPIA). IMI is laid out as a Joint Technology Initiative within the Seventh Framework Programme.

Michel Goldman Michel Goldman (born 1 January 1955) is a Belgian medical doctor who specialized in internal medicine and immunology. Biography Michel Goldman graduated as a medical doctor (1978) from Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium, and recei ...

was the first executive director, from September 2009 until December 2014. The Innovative Medicines Initiative is aimed towards removing research

bottleneck Bottleneck literally refers to the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle near its opening, which limit the rate of outflow, and may describe any object of a similar shape. The literal neck of a bottle was originally used to play what is now known as ...

s in the current

drug development Drug development is the process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery. It includes preclinical research on microorganisms and animals, filing for re ...

process. The IMI Joint Technology Initiative (IMI JTI), to be implemented by the IMI Joint Undertaking is meant to address these research bottlenecks. Its €2bn budget makes it the largest biomedical public-private partnership in the world. The funding scheme has been criticised, requiring universities to invest more money than with EU FP7 programs. Besides the non-competitive financial aspects of participation in IMI projects for academia, this criticism also discusses that intellectual property is freely flowing to industry. The Sixth Framework Programme's research projects InnoMed AddNeuroMed and InnoMed PredTox acted as pilot projects establishing the feasibility of this particular public-private partnership. Since then, the IMI has had four funding rounds: the first call had the topic Safety, while the second call was about Efficacy. Projects for these two calls are ongoing. The IMI 2 started in 2014 and will run until 2024, while the IMI 1 is still running. Overall budget is €3.276 billion, taken for half from the European

Horizon 2020 The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...

program. Goals of that second calls are to improve clinical trials success rate, deliver clinical proof of concept, biomarkers and new medicines.

IMI-Train

In September 2014 IMI-TRAIN, an IMI/ENSO-funded education and training collaboration to support biomedical scientists and professionals, has been launched. IMI-TRAIN will serve as a collaboration platform for the currently IMI-funded education and training projects:launch announcement September 2014
(Press Release) * EMTRAIN: European Medicines Research Training Network * Eu2P: European programme in Pharmacovigilance and Pharmacoepidemiology * Pharmatrain: Pharmaceutical Medicine Training Programme * SafeSciMET: Safety Sciences Modular Education and Training

References

External links

* {{Authority control European Union technology policy Horizon 2020 projects Joint undertakings of the European Union and European Atomic Energy Community Pharmaceutical industry Science and technology in Europe

IMI-Train

See also

References

External links