The Commission has launched an open consultation on plans for a public-private partnership in life sciences research and innovation under Horizon 2020.
The consultation will focus on public-private partnerships (PPP)s foreseen for the ‘societal challenges’ section of Horizon 2020. While the stated aim of the consultation is collect stakeholder opinions relating to the launch of a PPP in the life sciences research area under Horizon 2020 and what areas should be addressed, this is really a consultation on the Innovative Medicines Initiative(IMI).
The IMI is a 2 billion euro PPP between the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations(EFPIA) and follows a funding process similar to FP7 if somewhat simpler.
This consultation is relevant for VPH as funding for imaging technologies have recently begun to feature in IMI calls for proposals. A project to develop advanced imaging technologies for diagnostic purposes in tackling tuberculosis for example, received over 14 million euro in previous calls.
The IMI-2 is currently being developed and it is rumoured that it will have its budget tripled to a grand total of 6 billion euro. This consultation will no doubt impact on the drafting of the IMI-2 and presents an opportunity for VPH to stress the added value of imaging technologies.
The briefing document to the consultation itself shows that the Commission already has this in mind. The Commission points out that successful innovation requires collaboration in different sectors and states that “For example, several new pharmaceuticals are co-developed with a diagnostic. In future new interventions could be co-developed with an imaging test.” The document also stresses that there is a lack of predictive power in pre-clinical toxicology testing in current technologies.
The consultation will run until 04 October 2012.
More informationabout this consultation can be found here.
