The Innovative Medicines Initiative launches a public-private coordination and support action to develop an operational platform for its projects battling neurodegenerative diseases.
Madrid, Spain, 21 March 2019 – members of the NEURONET project announced the start of a new collaborative pan-European coordination and support initiative for the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) projects of the Neurodegenerative Disorders (ND) portfolio. NEURONET will set up a platform that will enable collaboration across the portfolio by delving into the world of neurodegenerative diseases; assisting in identifying gaps, multiplying the portfolio’s impact, and enhancing its visibility with related initiatives in Europe and worldwide.
Let’s talk about the Innovative Medicines Initiative
NEURONET consists of a small number of active partners in a variety of IMI ND projects and related initiatives. Its partners are specialists in complex/project management, data sharing & re-use, drug development, patient engagement, communication, sustainability and regulatory/HTA interactions.
NEURONET is sponsored by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the European pharmaceutical industry (via EFPIA) under the auspices of the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking.
Dr Pierre Meulien, Executive Director, IMI, explains: “Neurodegenerative diseases are an area of major unmet medical need and have been a priority for IMI since the very beginning.
“By bringing together IMI’s excellent projects in this important area, NEURONET will help the projects to collectively make progress and give new hope to the millions of people in Europe and beyond who are affected by these diseases.”
Connecting resources to tackle neurodegenerative diseases
Mr. Carlos Díaz, CEO, SYNAPSE Research Management Partners (SYNAPSE), NEURONET Project Coordinator, adds: “NEURONET has been designed to take a different approach to a typical coordination and support action: we want to effectively connect resources and needs of the different projects ‘just in time’, making sure that we serve the projects and not vice versa.
“This demands a dynamic structure that puts the projects at the steering wheel, with NEURONET focusing on being a key enabler and mediator across the whole IMI neurodegeneration portfolio.”
“Ensuring we are capturing and fully advancing the immense knowledge created in the numerous Neurodegeneration IMI projects is the key deliverable of NEURONET. This is critical if we are to make significant headway in the discovery of novel therapeutics for these devastating brain disorders.” Dr Darrel Pemberton, Senior Director, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, NEURONET Project Leader.
The NEURONET project has a budget of EUR 2.3 million distributed across a total of nine partners from the public and private sectors.
About the Innovative Medicines Initiative
The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is Europe’s largest public-private initiative aiming to speed up the development of better and safer medicines for patients.
IMI supports collaborative research projects and builds networks of industrial and academic experts in order to boost pharmaceutical innovation in Europe. IMI is a joint undertaking between the European Union and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, EFPIA.
