Brussels, 18/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 18 May, 15 new research projects aimed at bringing innovative medicines more quickly to the market have been selected to receive €246 million from the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). The Commission's contribution of €110 million is backed up with €136 million provided in-kind from the pharmaceutical industry. The projects were chosen following the first call for proposals launched within the Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI), a public-private partnership - so called Joint Technology Initiative. Janez Potoènik, EU Commissioner for Science and Research, indicated: “I'm happy to see that this unique public-private partnership is bearing fruit. Our objective is for Europe to become a champion's league for biopharmaceutical research”. The projects selected will address the main causes of delay, or "bottlenecks", in the pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) process. The overall objective is to encourage the more rapid discovery and development of better medicines for patients while improving the competitiveness of the European pharmaceutical industry. The projects will help to increase predicted safety and efficacy of medicines, enhance data exchange between researchers and improve education and training in the sector. Contract negotiations for the 15 projects should be finished by November 2009. A second Call for Proposals is to be launched in autumn 2009. It is planned to seek proposals for projects in oncology, diagnosis of infectious diseases, chronic inflammatory diseases and knowledge management. Launched in 2007, the Innovative Medicine Initiative was one of the first Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI) to be created. The total IMI budget for the period 2008-2013 is €2 billion
(€1 billion from the European Community and €1 billion from the industry). (B.C./transl.rh)