Brussels, Belgium, 10 August 2015 – The excellence of research supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is confirmed by a detailed analysis of scientific papers produced by IMI projects. The analysis, carried out by Thomson Reuters and published online today, demonstrates that IMI-funded research measures up well against research supported by other high-profile funding organisations like the Wellcome Trust and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Meanwhile a letter published in Nature Biotechnology by IMI and others sets out how this report fits in to IMI’s wider efforts to evaluate its achievements.

The Thomson Reuters report is the latest in a series of analyses of what journals IMI research is published in, how many times IMI papers are cited by other researchers (the ‘citation impact’), and other questions surrounding the publications produced by IMI projects.

Key findings in the latest report:

• By the end of 2014, IMI projects had produced 1 134 scientific papersand this number continues to rise. 
• IMI research has a citation impactof 2.19 - over twice the world average (baseline of 1.0) and almost twice the EU average (1.10).
• Around a quarter(24%) of IMI papers are ‘highly cited’, meaning they are in the top 10% of papers for that journal category and year, when ranked by number of citations received.
• On both measures, IMI research compares favourably to research funded by other well-established, high-profile medical research funding organisationslike the Wellcome Trust , the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and the Medical Research Council.
• IMI research is published in some of the most prestigious journals in the world, including Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
• IMI research is collaborative. Well over half (59.7%) of all papers feature authors from different sectors (e.g. universities, pharmaceutical companies, small companies, patient organisations). Around half (53.4%) include authors from more than one country.
• Papers with authors from multiple sectorsor international co-authors have a higher citation impact than papers with authors from just one sector or one country respectively.
• IMI projectswith particularly high citation impacts include projects addressing serious disease areas such as schizophrenia & depression (NEWMEDS), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (PROactive), severe asthma (U-BIOPRED), rheumatoid arthritis (BTCure), cancer (OncoTrack and Quic-Concept), diabetes (DIRECT), and autism spectrum disorders (EU-AIMS). Other high-impact projects are addressing cross-cutting issues in medicines development such as safety (BIOVACSAFE, eTOX & SAFE-T), drug delivery (ORBITO), and data management (Open PHACTS).

Meanwhile, a letter published in Nature Biotechnology by authors from IMI and other organisations emphasises the importance of using a framework of multiple indicators to evaluate different aspects of the performance of public-private partnerships like IMI. Currently, IMI evaluates issues such as the impact of its projects on medicines regulation, business development, the involvement of small companies and patients in projects, as well as socio-economic aspects.

The paper, whose lead author is past IMI Executive Director Michel Goldman, notes that such a framework is needed ‘to compare and improve the performance of ongoing consortia and establish new ones that are fit for purpose’. Furthermore, a ‘robust demonstration of the efficiency’ of organisations like IMI is ‘mandatory to support the assumption that they represent the way forward to boost innovation in the healthcare sector’.