The Innovative Medicines Initiative neurodegeneration portfolio: From individual projects to collaborative networks

Abstract

The IMI public-private partnership between the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) was launched in 2008 with an initial budget of €2 billion. Aiming to accelerate the development of innovative medicines for areas of unmet clinical need, the IMI has committed over €380 million to projects on neurodegenerative disorders (NDD), catalyzing public-private collaborations at scale and at all stages of the R&D pipeline. Because of this vast investment, research on neurodegenerative diseases has made enormous strides in recent decades. The challenge for the future however remains to utilize this newly found knowledge and generated assets to develop better tools and novel therapeutic strategies. Here, we report the results of an integrated programme analysis of the IMI NDD portfolio, performed by the Neuronet Coordination and Support Action. Neuronet was launched by the IMI in 2019 to boost synergies and collaboration between projects in the IMI NDD portfolio, to increase the impact and visibility of research, and to facilitate interactions with related initiatives worldwide. Our analysis assessed the characteristics, structure and assets of the project portfolio and identifies lessons from projects spanning preclinical research to applied clinical studies and beyond. Evaluation of project parameters and network analyses of project partners revealed a complex web of 236 partnering organizations, with EFPIA partners often acting as connecting nodes across projects, and with a great diversity of academic institutions. Organizations in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands were highly represented in the portfolio, which has a strong focus on clinical research in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease in particular. Based on surveys and unstructured interviews with NDD research leaders, we identified actions to enhance collaboration between project partners, by improving the structure and definition of in-kind contributions; reducing administrative burdens; and enhancing the exploitation of outcomes from research investments by EU taxpayers and EFPIA. These recommendations could help increase the efficiency and impact of future public-private partnerships on neurodegeneration.

Participating in innovative medicines initiative funded neurodegenerative disorder projects—An impact analysis conducted as part of the NEURONET project

“…In addition, nearly all respondents reported meeting new people, both internally and externally. This advantage to working in the IMI ND portfolio has previously been cited (5,13) and fostering radical collaboration between diverse public and private partners was found as a key success in a review of the IMI in 2019 (14). Our finding that the IMI ND projects are impactful in helping forge collaborations aligns with literature on this topic.…”

“…This is an area that should be considered in future projects and should be an important priority for funding bodies to address. This is not the first time this drawback has been documented (5,14). This administrative burden is potentially jeopardizing the sustainability of interest in participating in these projects particularly for SMEs with limited head counts and administrative capacities and should be a key consideration going forward.…”

“…The IMI ND projects span the whole pre-reimbursement pathway and whilst there are examples of projects focused on the HTA and regulatory end of the pipeline, many projects are pre-clinical and would not be expected to achieve a high impact on regulatory practice or public health. The long timelines in the life sciences and issues relating to translation of project results from bench to bedside are well-recognized challenges ( 5 , 7 , 14 , 19 ), however IMI1 projects have been shown to result in downstream socio-economic impact ( 18 ). The review of publications also eludes to the projects having an impact at all stages of the product development timeline ( 12 ).…”

“…A visual heatmap was created using MS Excel to show the research priorities and the extent to which these were being addressed. Full details for the methods used in stage one of the impact analysis are documented in the final report ( 11 ) and have been published ( 5 ).…”

“…The network analysis revealed that EFPIA companies are key vehicles for dissemination of knowledge generated between projects due to their prominent feature in the network ( 5 ). For example, they were more likely to work on multiple IMI ND projects, connecting them to more organizations.…”