Launch of Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI 2) Call 21 to Combat Coronavirus
Tuesday, 03 March, 2020
The current coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern according to the International Health Regulation. It is crucial to rapidly gain a better understanding of the newly identified virus, especially in relation to potential clinical and public health measures that can be put to immediate use to improve patients’ health and/or contain the spread of COVID-19.
Collaboration of private companies, academia, international organisations, public bodies etc. has the potential to accelerate the development of therapeutics and diagnostics to tackle this current and future outbreaks. The actions resulting from this fast-track IMI2 call will contribute to the pan-European efforts responding to this Public Health Emergency.
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Proposals are expected to advance the knowledge specifically on COVID-19 and more widely on the coronavirus family with the aim of contributing to an efficient patient management and/or public health preparedness and response to current and future outbreaks of coronavirus infection.
Considering that this is a newly identified virus, the scope of this topic remains broad and must address at least one of the following objectives:
- Development of therapeutics to address a rapid response towards the current COVID-19 outbreak: relevant 'clinical ready'-assets include approved therapies or compounds in development, which could be repurposed for use in treating patients with the coronavirus.
- Development of therapeutics to address the current and/or future coronaviruses outbreaks: identification of new potential assets and approaches that could be utilised including preventive strategies and combination approaches and could also address potential resistance. This may also include optimisation of promising treatments used in rapid response (eg reformulation).
- Development of diagnostics, ensuring rapid evaluation of candidates based on existing technologies, to allow for fast case detection and surveillance.
- Development of fast and reliable detection of COVID-19 carriers and symptomatic individuals suspected of COVID-19 infection. This can be achieved through point of care (POC) testing or centralised testing.
Preventive vaccines are specifically excluded from the scope of the call.
The total budget for this Call is €45 million.
Proposals must be made by a consortium of at least three independent legal entities, each established in a different EU Member State or associated country.
The deadline for submissions is 31 March 2020.