Brussels, 22/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 15 April, the second version of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI2) received the support of the European Parliament, which was consulted for its opinion only. The report by the MEP Riera Madurell (S&D, Spain) was adopted at the plenary session in Strasbourg by 560 votes in favour, 104 votes against and nine abstentions. Only the Greens/EFA group tabled amendments, but these were all rejected.
This initiative is based on the principle of the public-private partnership. From June 2014 up to 2024, it will be headed up by the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), with co-funding worth €1.7 billion from the framework programme on research and innovation “Horizon 2020”. The Commission has laid down a triple target: a 30% better success rate in clinical trials of priority medicines identified by the WHO; clinical proof of concept in immunological, respiratory, neurological and neurodegenerative diseases in just five years; new and approved diagnostic markers for four of these diseases and at least two new medicines, which could either be new antibiotics or new therapies for Alzheimer's disease.
The Greens/EFA group argues that these targets have been poorly defined. The vice-president of the group, the French MEP Michèle Rivasi, criticised an initiative in which “the innovation targets laid down are not necessarily connected to the actual health needs of the population, but rather to the profitability of the treatment for given diseases”. She added that this initiative will favour “the largest” European pharmaceutical laboratories, which will be “at a de facto advantage when it comes to winning calls for tender organised for the allocation of funds for research”. This will be at the expense of SMEs, which will have “no choice but to play the game of sub-contracting R&D work from the major labs”, she said (our translation). (JK)