55th Edition – March 2016

Coming soon: IMI 2 – Call 9

The following topics are under consideration for inclusion in IMI 2 - Call 9, which will be launched shortly:

• Addressing the clinical burden of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI): evaluation of the burden, current practices and set up of a European research platform (part of the IMI New Drugs for Bad Bugs (ND4BB) programme)
• Development of immune tolerance therapies for the treatment of rheumatic diseases
• Data quality in preclinical research and development
• Next generation of electronic translational safety – NEXGETS
• Identification and validation of non-invasive markers across the spectrum of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
• Joint influenza vaccine effectiveness surveillance

Drafts of all topics can be downloaded from the Future Topics page of the IMI website.

All information regarding future IMI Call topics is indicative and subject to change. Final information about future IMI Calls will be communicated after approval by the IMI Governing Board.

Interested in the Call 9 topics? Sign up for the webinars now!

From 11 to 29 April 2016, IMI will hold webinars on each topic of the upcoming IMI 2 9th Call for proposals, as well as one webinar on the IMI 2 rules and procedures.

All webinars on the Call topics will feature a presentation by the EFPIA topic coordinator and time for questions and answers. The webinar on IMI’s rules and procedures will also include presentations of IMI's intellectual property policy and tips on the preparation of proposal submissions.

These webinars represent an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Call topics, interact directly with the topic coordinators, and get in touch with potential project partners. The schedule is as follows (all times are Central European Summer Time / Brussels time):

Data quality in preclinical research and development
Monday 11 April 2016, 15:00 - 16:30
Development of immune tolerance therapies for the treatment of rheumatic diseases
Friday 15 April 2016, 14:30 - 16:00
Next generation of electronic translational safety – NEXGETS
Monday 18 April 2016, 15:00 - 16:30
IMI 2 Rules and Procedures
Monday 25 April 2016, 10:30 - 12:00
Identification and validation of non-invasive markers across the spectrum of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
Tuesday 26 April 2016, 15:00 - 16:30
Addressing the clinical burden of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI): evaluation of the burden, current practices and set up of a European research platform
Wednesday 27 April 2016, 15:00 - 16:30
Joint influenza vaccine effectiveness surveillance
Friday 29 April 2016, 10:30 - 12:00

Registration is free but obligatory. Links to the registration forms for each webinar can be found on the webinars page.

Interested in our new Call topics? Read our tips for applicants

There are a lot of things applicants can do to increase their chances of submitting a successful proposal. The following tips are based on feedback from applicants and IMI staff observations when going through proposals.

• Start working early - putting together a consortium and preparing a short proposal takes a lot of time.
• Find partners - individual researchers are not eligible to receive funding through IMI Calls for proposals – you will need to join or form a consortium.
• Read and understand the Call documents - this may take some time, but this should be considered as an investment.
• Ask questions - If something in the Call documents is unclear, or if you have any questions about the Call topics or the rules and procedures, contact the IMI Programme Office – it’s our job to help you.
• Get informed - webinars are an excellent way to ensure you understand the Call topics as well as IMI’s rules and procedures.
• Make sure you address the requirements of the topic as set out in the topic text and that your consortium includes all the expertise needed to carry out the tasks expected of it.
• The evaluators aren’t psychic – ensure your proposal is well written and includes all the information the reviewers will need to assess it.
• Don’t forget to address any ethical issues - this speaks for itself!
• Don’t forget the basics – eligibility criteria, application format, deadline…

Good luck!

Find project partners

If you are interested in any applying for funding under the newly-announced topics, one of your first tasks will be to find or build an applicant consortium, and to do this, you will need to find partners. IMI’s partner search page includes advice on different routes for finding partners. The tips can be summarised as follows:

• Start early - putting together a consortium takes time
• Use your contacts – this is the most effective way of getting into a consortium
• Network at events
• Use online partner search tools 
• Use social media like the IMI LinkedIn group

Our website also has a tip for applicants page with advice on how to submit a strong proposal.

Meet IMI at BIO 2016

IMI will take part in this year’s BIO International Convention which will be held in San Francisco, US on 6-9 June 2016 inclusive. A highlight for IMI is the organisation on Monday 6 June of a session in the educational programme on ‘ Revolutionising Clinical Trials for Alzheimer’s: An International Perspective on Adaptive Clinical Trials’. Featuring leading experts in Alzheimer’s disease, the session will explore how projects on both sides of the Atlantic are working on a novel, adaptive model of clinical trials for Alzheimer’s research. IMI will also be present at the European Commission’s booth (no. 5978) at the BIO Exhibition. There will be people on hand throughout the event to answer questions about IMI as well as the European Commission’s wider research programmes. There will also be regular mini sessions at the stand on IMI and other EU research programmes; the schedule will be available closer to the event. The BIO International Convention (BIO) attracts over 15 000 biotechnology and pharma leaders who come together for a week of intensive educational, networking and partnering opportunities. 

News from the projects

Calling all trainers - on-course ® has a toolkit for you!

On-course ® has launched an online toolkit designed to support biomedical science trainers in designing effective course formats. Created by experts from academia and the pharmaceutical industry, the new toolkit helps trainers to study and explore new ways of teaching the biomedical sciences in a way that meets students’ needs. A key feature is the guided search app, which enables instructors to select the best training strategies based on their goals and target audience. Each method includes a description with guidance, plus trainers can also share their experiences on using these various teaching approaches with the wider community. The toolkit also includes a fun quiz to encourage trainers to consider the diverse learning styles they might encounter in the classroom. Most importantly, the toolkit provides an opportunity for instructors to share how they have used different methods, so that they can learn from each other and exchange best practice. Instructors can already submit their own use cases and they will soon be able to submit new methods too. On-course ® is an online course catalogue developed by IMI’s education and training project EMTRAIN.

Predict-TB marks world TB day

On 24 March, World TB Day, IMI’s tuberculosis (TB) project PreDiCT-TB highlighted how it is contributing to efforts to ‘unite to end TB’ – the motto of this year’s events. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2014, 9.6 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died; most of these cases were in low and middle income countries. Treatment still requires six months or more of combinations of antibiotics to ensure a complete cure and more effective drugs are urgently needed to shorten treatment. The goal of the PreDiCT-TB consortium is to find the most rapid and reliable ways of identifying the most potent combinations of new drugs and hasten their arrival in the clinic. On World TB Day, PreDiCT-TB published new materials, including articles, videos and images explaining the project’s activities and progress.

Open PHACTS completes formal handover to Open PHACTS Foundation

IMI’s Open PHACTS project has proven hugely successful, and has delivered a platform that links up diverse and complementary drug discovery databases, allowing researchers to rapidly find and access relevant data. The IMI project has now finished, but the Open PHACTS Discovery Platform will live on thanks to the Open PHACTS Foundation, which was set up to build on the work begun in the project. The foundation was set up a couple of years ago, and the formal handover from project to foundation took place at the project’s closing meeting in Vienna in late February. Meanwhile the foundation has already established itself as a leader in linking data, and is a partner in two Horizon 2020 projects.

In an article on the Open PHACTS Foundation website, the partners write: ‘Overall the development of the Open PHACTS Discovery Platform has been a remarkable success, demonstrating just what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together. Several presenters highlighted one key factor in the project’s success: people. Although Open PHACTS began as somewhat of an “arranged marriage”, over the last five years the project has fostered and supported a community that has become much closer to a real family. We managed to bridge not only the cultural divides among different nationalities, but also the divide between scientists and engineers – which some would argue is much bigger!’

Presentations from the closing event, as well as photos, posters and background information, can be viewed via the event web page.

Interested in real world evidence in drug development? Sign up for GetReal’s webinars!

IMI’s GetReal project will hold a number of events this year on the themes of relative effectiveness and how it can best be integrated into drug development. Registration is now open for the following events.

18 April: Introduction to the concept of drivers of effectiveness - The webinar will introduce the concept of drivers of effectiveness and will provide an overview of the methods which can be used to identify them early during the drug development plan.

10 May: Synthesis and integration of real-world evidence in network meta-analyses and outcome prediction - The focus of this webinar will be on the use of network meta-analysis for evidence synthesis and on the extension of its conclusions in real-world settings, using predictive modelling.

Further webinars are planned for later in the year. Visit the GetReal website for the latest updates.
 

The Innovative Medicines Initiative is the largest public-private partnership aiming to boost pharmaceutical innovation in Europe and to speed up the development of better and safer medicines for patients. IMI is a joint undertaking between the European Union and the pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA.
www.imi.europa.eu