Vision
Creating Biomedical Research & Development leadership for Europe to benefit patients and society.
Objectives
The objective of IMI is to support the faster discovery and development of better medicines for patients and to enhance Europe’s competitiveness by ensuring that its biopharmaceutical sector remains a dynamic high-technology sector.
Achieving the Objectives
IMI is a European Technology Platform launched by the European Commission (EC Directorate General Research) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) in 2004.
Pending a favourable decision on IMI by the EU Institutions, the European Commission and EFPIA propose to create and operate a new Public Private Partnership, the IMI Joint Undertaking. The IMI Joint Undertaking will fund Patient Centred Projects. Patient Centred Projects are defined as research projects addressing the principle causes of delay, or bottlenecks, slowing down the development of innovative medicines. Patient Centred Projects will be conducted and supported through a unique type of public and private collaborations between European patient organisations, universities, hospitals, regulatory authorities, and small and large companies.
IMI Patient Centred Projects will address the principle causes of delay, or bottlenecks, in the current process of discovering and developing new medicines. These IMI research projects will not develop new drugs per se but will generate new knowledge about diseases and new tools and technologies, thus, better underpinning, improving and accelerating development of new therapies.
IMI Strategic Research Agenda
Over 350 senior representatives of patient organisations, universities, hospitals, regulatory authorities as well as small and large biopharmaceutical companies contributed to the elaboration of the IMI Strategic Research Agenda.
The IMI Strategic Research Agenda describes the bottlenecks in the biomedical research and development process as:
- predicting safety,
- predicting efficacy,
- bridging gaps in knowledge management, and
- bridging gaps in education and training
Recommendations on predicting safety and efficacy of new medicines as well as plans to bridge gaps in knowledge management and in education and training are presented in the IMI Strategic Research Agenda. The IMI Strategic Research Agenda is a living document and will be up-dated as necessitated by scientific advances.