IMI provides successful platform to fight epidemics

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The EFPIA view

IMI provides successful platform to fight epidemics

12.03.15

Mutation-capable viruses such as Ebola recognise no borders and can only be properly opposed by a committed coalition of borderless union of researchers, health authorities, official agencies, international organisations, biotechnology companies, and pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturers.

Speaking at a recent press briefing hosted by the French research-based pharmaceutical agency, LEEM, Magda Chlebus, Director Science Policy at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) stressed that the highly successful Innovative Medicines Initiative offers precisely this kind of platform.

"The European Union is coordinating its efforts in terms both of humanitarian aid and unprecedented support for research through its R&D funding programmes. The industry is fully committed and is making a massive contribution to this collaborative effort, particularly through its flexible and rapid deployment of the Ebola+ programme as part of phase 2 of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI2). This programme is already financing 8 diagnostic and vaccination projects for the current epidemic. Another call for proposals will soon be launched to prepare for the process of countering the epidemics of tomorrow", explains Magda Chlebus, Director Science Policy at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

To read the interview in full, please click here.