The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) represents the biopharmaceutical industry operating in Europe. Through its direct membership of 37 national associations, 40 leading pharmaceutical companies and a growing number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), EFPIA’s mission is to create a collaborative environment that enables our members to innovate, discover, develop and deliver new therapies and vaccines for people across Europe, as well as contribute to the European economy. 

Our Organisational Structure

EFPIA specialised group

Vaccines Europe (VE) is the specialised vaccine industry group within EFPIA. It represents major innovative research-based global vaccine companies as well as small and medium sized enterprises operating in Europe.

EFPIA Partners in Research 

The evolving societal and healthcare challenges as well as opportunities offered by new sciences and technologies, call for a much more integrated health research environment than in the past.

EFPIA created "Partners in Research" as a constituent entity open to companies operating in associated sectors (such as imaging, MedTech, diagnostics, animal health, IT - including e- and m-technologies, contract research organisations, etc.), and aiming to participate to collaborative research partnerships. This membership status made it possible to jointly design and implement collaborative R&D initiatives in the framework of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), which implemented new R&D, operational, and business models that benefit all sectors involved (impact on R&D processes), patients (new treatment pathways), and society (incentives for reinvestment in areas where there is market failure).

Meanwhile, science is driving new avenues of R&D often spanning different sectors within the life-science community: future breakthroughs in medical science will involve cross-sectoral discoveries, such as medical device / drug combinations or diagnostics based on artificial intelligence. With the end of the IMI2 programme, and aware of the growing importance of cross-sectoral cooperation, the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), a new public private partnership was launched in 2021. IHI will leverage the benefits of cross-sectoral collaborations (pharma, biotech, vaccines, device, and diagnostics) in research and innovation to better respond to current and emerging health needs.

Companies wishing to join an IHI project, but which do not qualify to join other founding IHI trade associations (EuropaBio, Medtech Europe, and COCIR) can apply for the EFPIA Partner in Research membership.

Additional resources
Partners in Research: implementing technology integration
List of current Partners in Research

For further information about Partners in Research, please contact the Science Policy team at science-policy@efpia.eu.