Pre-announcement Innovative Medicine Initiative – IMI 9th Call
04-07-2013

The Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking (IMI JU) is a unique pan-European public private partnership between the European Commission and EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations – www.efpia.eu ) driving collaboration between all relevant stakeholders including large and small biopharmaceutical and healthcare companies, regulators, academia, and patients.

 The aim of IMI is to propose a coordinated approach to overcome identified research bottlenecks in the drug development process, in order to accelerate the development of safe and more effective medicines for patients, by fostering collaboration between all stakeholders such as industry, public authorities (including regulators), organizations of patients, academia and clinical centers, and enhancing Europe’s competitiveness.

The IMI 9th Call 2013 for proposals includes topics covering the following key research priorities:

  • Knowledge Management (correlated to the area of interest: Knowledge, Patient, Development)
  • Coping with Regulatory and Legal Hurdles (correlated to the area of interest: Development)
  • Beyond Drug Discovery: Drug Development and the Regulatory Framework (correlated to the area of interest: Development)
  • Infectious diseases (correlated to the area of interest: Disease Drug Efficacy)

 The 9th Call topics are:

  • WEBAE – Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Pharmacovigilance (focuses on Social Media Data Mining Algorithms)
  • Developing Innovative Therapeutic Interventions Against Physical Frailty and Sarcopenia (ITI-PF&S) as a Prototype Geriatric Indication
  • And, under the theme: Combatting Antimicrobial Resistance: NewDrugs4BadBugs (ND4BB)
  1. oND4BB TOPIC 4: Driving re-investment in R&D and Responsible Use of Antibiotics
  2. oND4BB TOPIC 5: Clinical development of antibacterial agents for Gram-negative antibiotic resistant pathogens

 Applicant Consortia will be invited to submit expressions of interest to one of the topics.

 The expressions of interest should address all aspects of the topic to which the Applicant Consortia are applying.

 The size of each consortium should be adapted to the scientific goals and the expected key deliverables.

 The indicative duration of the project is between 3 years and 5 years.

 The Topics included in the 9th Call are associated with a group of pharmaceutical companies that are members of EFPIA (hereafter called the 'EFPIA Consortia') and which are committed to collaborate with public and private organisations eligible for funding by the IMI JU. The EFPIA members will provide 'in kind' contributions to support their activities within the research projects.

 The IMI JU applies a two stage Call process. In the first stage, ‘Applicant Consortia' (i.e. formed by academia, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), patient organisations, non EFPIA companies, etc.) are invited to submit, to the IMI JU, an expression of interest (EoI) in response to a Call topic/subtopic.

 In preparing their EoIs, the Applicant Consortia should carefully read the Guidance Notes for Submission and Preparation of Expression of Interest published on the IMI website www.imi.europa.eu at the time of the 9th Call 2013 launch, in addition to the specific Applicant Consortium expectations/requirements outlined within the description of the individual topic.

 The Applicant Consortium shall consider the research contribution that an EFPIA Consortium will make to a given project.

 Each EoI submitted will be reviewed by independent experts according to predefined evaluation criteria.

 Each Applicant Consortium with the highest ranked EoI will be invitedto develop a full projectproposal together with the EFPIA Consortium.

For each topic, the full project proposal will then be subject to a final review by independent experts according to predefined evaluation criteria.

  The IMI JU financial contribution will be based on the reimbursement of the eligible costs. The following funding rates apply to the legal entities eligible for funding: For research and technological development activities, up to 75% of the eligible costs and for other activities (including management and training activities) up to 100% of the eligible costs charged to the project are eligible for funding. For the indirect costs (overheads), the legal entities eligible for funding may opt for one of the following indirect costs methods: the actual indirect costs; or the simplified method which is a modality of the actual indirect costs for organisations which do not aggregate their indirect costs at a detailed level, but can aggregate them at the level of the legal entity; or a flat rate of 20% of total eligible direct costs (excluding subcontracting costs and the costs of resources made available by third parties which are not used on the premises of the beneficiary).

IMI will hold webinars on all 9th Call topics as well as its rules and procedures in July 2013 (starting 1st July 2013). Details about webminars on:

 http://www.imi.europa.eu/events/2013/06/06/imi-9th-call-webinars 

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