Universities attack European research grant
pharmafile | September 9, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | EFPIA, IMI, Innovative Medicines Initiative, academia
A European initiative aimed at fostering new medical research is neglecting its public partners in favour of its private ones, according to a group of universities.
The League of Research Universities have written an open letter to the organisers of the fund which is highly critical of how funds have been allocated.
They say the Innovative Medicines Initiative “shows how a private-public partnership should not be set up”, in a letter sent to the IMI board, state representatives and the intellectual property working group.
The League’s biggest complaint is with the funding and reimbursement it receives. The IMI is jointly funded by the European Commission and pharma industry body the EFPIA partners, each contributing 50% of funding.
For the EC members, this constitutes public funding, but it says that only receives a 75% reimbursement rate that is in turn resulting in projects making a financial loss.
Intellectual property is also an issue, according to the letter, as under the “window-dressing of IMI as a ‘private-public partnership’ a new IP policy was introduced without consultation of academic institutions that saw a clear push towards providing advantages to the EFPIA partners”.
The letter said: “The combination of disadvantageous financial and intellectual property rules represents a double negative when it comes to academic or SME participation.
“The EC and EFPIA should not expect their ‘partners’ to accept rules, by which they basically give away all their IP [intellectual property] for free and do not even receive full funding for their research activities.”
The League believes these new terms are unfavourable to them and show “without a doubt that IMI is not about equal partnerships, and this is in fact a deterrent to academic participation”.
Several League members and other research institutions have already implemented strict procedures for scientists who wish to participate in an IMI proposal. The effect, the League states, is that most of them “withdraw before submission because academic participation is just not feasible”.
The IMI is a public-private partnership (PPP) between the pharma industry, represented by EFPIA, and the European Union, represented by the European Commission and research-based universities.
It currently has a number of collaborative projects in a range of areas, including pharmacovigilance and medicine training programmes to individual drug trials and biomarkers.
A list of ongoing research projects can be found here.
Ben Adams
Related Content
WHO voices concern over British immigration policies after researchers refused entry
The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern over the UK’s immigration polices, after a …
Scientists launch free, open access, antibiotics database to tackle AMR
A team of scientists, led by Professor Laura Piddock from the University of Birmingham, have …
Pharma industry calls for EMA relocation by June in open EFPIA letter
Heads of research from 19 of the biggest players in the industry have called for …
