Brussels, 27/11/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 27 November, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) launched its second call for proposals. This public-private partnership between the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has invited research consortiums to submit their proposals in nine scientific areas. The aim of the call is to speed up discovery and development of new medicines for illnesses such as cancer and inflammatory and infections diseases. The Commission's contribution of €76.8 million to this second call is expected to be at least matched by contributions from EFPIA member companies. On 16 November, the IMI became autonomous. A new team led by new Director General Michael Goldman will head the IMI Executive Board which will be based in Brussels, and will be responsible with allocating the subsidies granted under the second call for proposals. The deadline for submissions is 8 February 2010 and the proposals selected will be known in summer 2010.
The nine themes of this second call for proposals are: 1) imaging biomarkers for anti-cancer drug development; 2) new tools for target validation to improve drug efficacy; 3) Molecular biomarkers - accelerating cancer therapy development and refining patient care; 4) identification and development of rapid point of care microbiologic diagnostic tests; 5) understanding aberrant adaptive immunity mechanisms in human chronic immune-mediated diseases; 6) translational research in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and RA like diseases: bridging between animal models and humans; 7) drug/disease modelling: library & framework; 8) open pharmacological space; 9) electronic health records. (O.J./transl.rt)