The European Commission funds through Horizon 2020, the EU research and innovation programme, up to €45 million of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) fast track call for research proposals in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. A commitment of a similar scale is expected from the pharmaceutical industry so that the total investment could reach up to €90 million.

The IMI call invites proposals for projects to develop treatments and diagnostics to better tackle the COVID-19 outbreak and to increase preparedness for potential future outbreaks.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

I welcome the rapid response of IMI to the coronavirus outbreak. This collaboration between the public and the private sectors brings their expertise and resources together in our fight against the coronavirus outbreak. This will help speed up the development of treatments and diagnostics in face of this global emergency and increase our preparedness for future outbreaks.

This call comes as part of the coordinated EU response to the public health threat of COVID-19, hand in hand with the emergency research funding mobilised recently under Horizon 2020. The special call for expression of interest (SC1-PHE-CORONAVIRUS-2020) was launched on January 30 with a budget of €10 million. In the coming weeks, the selected projects will start their work to advance the knowledge on COVID-19 and its impact on infected people, with the aim of contributing to an efficient patient management and/or public health preparedness and response.

Background

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is a public-private partnership between the European Commission and the pharmaceutical industry represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

More information

IMI Press Release

IMI2- Call 21 website