Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - May 26, 2009 - (Page 1)
News Pharma projects bank 246 million for innovative medicines projects Fifteen research projects have been selected by the European Commission (EC) and EFPIA to receive 246 million in funding under the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) initiative. The awards are being made to academic institutes and small companies to research ways of beating bottlenecks in the drug development process. The EC is contributing 110 million to the research, with the pharmaceutical industry providing 136 million in kind by supplying staff and equipment. The collaboration is “pre-competitive”, involving common solutions to issues in drug development, so no individual company stands to gain an advantage. Around 150 applications were received. The best consortia, consisting of research organisations, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), academia, patient organisations and regulatory bodies, were selected in the first peer review to form joint project teams with the corresponding EFPIA consortia. Contract negotiations for the 15 projects should be finished by November 2009. A second Call for Proposals is to be launched in autumn 2009. The initial areas of disease focus will be diabetes, pain, severe asthma and psychiatric disorders, and the aim is to find better methods for predicting the safety and efficacy of new medicines. Further information can be found at http://www.imi-europe.org. For more on these news stories and all the latest breaking pharma news, look at our website www.pharmexeceurope.com 27 May 2009 Money for old drugs Cancer Research Technology, a British cancer charity, is to fund clinical trials of a drug owned by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in a groundbreaking programme to develop promising experimental medicines that are neglected due to limited corporate funding. “GSK has got a large number of molecules in its pipeline and many merit investogation. But it can’t take them all into the clinic at the same time — so a number end up sitting on the shelf,” remarked Cancer Research’s licensing manager, Ian Walker. The charity will fund early and mid-stage testing in humans before offering GSk the opportunity to finance more expensive late-stage clinical trials. If GSK decline, it may offer the rights to another company instead. Terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. 2 NEWS Next 12 months critical for biotech 3 BRUSSELS REPORT Reflector is unimpressed with the EFPIA 4 E-MARKETING Getting the best out of your e-Marketing strategy 6 CRITICAL VISION Why only the bad times are good for pharma Lucas Racasse & Laurent Hamels/Getty Images 9 CALENDAR Upcoming industry events 10 LAST WORDS The week in pharma, according to pharma Don’t miss the e-Marketing boat Pharma marketers, particularly those targeting the US market, face a crisis in digital media. But there’s a way to turn it around, says Lee Slovitt. Turn to page 4 11 ON THE MOVE This week’s movers and shakers
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.