Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EP PerMed (European Partnership for Personalised Medicine)
Reporting period: 2023-11-01 to 2025-04-30
EP PerMed is a European Partnership dedicated to Personalised Medicine (PM). It supports PM-related R&I, but also facilitates and accelerates all steps so that PM achievements successfully pass through the full value continuum to be implemented in sustainable health systems for the benefit of people and societies. EP PerMed fosters demonstration projects and promotes successes and lessons learned to demonstrate evidence of PM implementation. The partnership’s activities cover overarching aspects, like patient involvement, exchange with medical societies, infrastructures and international and regional collaboration. The project portfolios of EP PerMed and ERA PerMed (former ERA-Net co-fund on PM) and others are supported to become successful innovations in healthcare practice on national, regional or local level. EP PerMed will be the global PM-platform for scientific and strategic dialogue and alignment, resulting in public documents and publications. Accordingly, the partnership informs and engages the public, patients, healthcare providers or payers about the latest PM options. The Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for Personalised Medicine (SRIA for PM, 2023), developed by the EP PerMed partners and supported by the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine (ICPerMed), is the basis for the partnership's structure and a wide range of its activities. All steps of the SRIA development were strongly supported by numerous PM-experts, stakeholders and the European Commission (EC). Thus, the EP PerMed annual Joint Transnational Calls (JTCs) and other funding activities, events and tools are in line with the SRIA and the outputs will feed into a SRIA update in the coming years. The partnership builds on several developments, initiatives and projects such as ERA PerMed, ICPerMed and its supporting projects (“ICPerMed Family”) funded by the EC. In parallel, it reaches out to the 1+Million Genomes Initiative, other European Partnerships in the Health Cluster and beyond, as well as to European and national infrastructures, like the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI).
In the first 18 months, EP PerMed performed several activities that contribute to its above outlined objectives and impacts. Among others, these include:
• Two Joint Transnational Calls (JTC) for collaborative research and innovation projects have been launched (JTC2024 and 2025). In the 1st JTC on “Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)”, close to 40 million euros of funding was granted to 27 collaborative projects, involving 154 research groups from 24 countries. The 2nd JTC on “Pharmacogenomic Strategies for Personalised Medicine Approaches“ is under evaluation.
• An online project database has been set up on the EP PerMed website, including information not only on the projects funded by EP PerMed, but also by the former ERA-Net ERA PerMed. The database currently contains 111 joint transnational PM consortia.
• An overarching conference on PM research has been organized in Berlin, Germany, in February 2025. Additionally, several additional events tailored to smaller target groups have been organised, such as a training on scientific integrity.
• Two “Round Tables” on PM innovation were successfully organised in Brussels and Valencia.
• Two innovation activities have been launched:
The 1st “Fast Track” Call addresses a critical bottleneck in the development of PM solutions, namely the validation phase, and will assist start-ups navigating this phase. The 1st “Venture Creation Programme” for PM provides guidance by experienced mentors, equipping researchers with robust business validation techniques and strategic insights. This will guide their pioneering work to effectively reach the market, benefiting patients and driving forward PM innovations and related start-ups.
• Three EP PerMed Advisory Boards are set up to guide PM innovation, implementation and to engage patients and citizens. These will advise the work and activities of EP PerMed. Additionally, a citizen engagement strategy has been developed.
• Two Joint Transnational Calls (JTC) for collaborative research and innovation projects have been launched (JTC2024 and 2025). In the 1st JTC on “Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)”, close to 40 million euros of funding was granted to 27 collaborative projects, involving 154 research groups from 24 countries. The 2nd JTC on “Pharmacogenomic Strategies for Personalised Medicine Approaches“ is under evaluation.
• An online project database has been set up on the EP PerMed website, including information not only on the projects funded by EP PerMed, but also by the former ERA-Net ERA PerMed. The database currently contains 111 joint transnational PM consortia.
• An overarching conference on PM research has been organized in Berlin, Germany, in February 2025. Additionally, several additional events tailored to smaller target groups have been organised, such as a training on scientific integrity.
• Two “Round Tables” on PM innovation were successfully organised in Brussels and Valencia.
• Two innovation activities have been launched:
The 1st “Fast Track” Call addresses a critical bottleneck in the development of PM solutions, namely the validation phase, and will assist start-ups navigating this phase. The 1st “Venture Creation Programme” for PM provides guidance by experienced mentors, equipping researchers with robust business validation techniques and strategic insights. This will guide their pioneering work to effectively reach the market, benefiting patients and driving forward PM innovations and related start-ups.
• Three EP PerMed Advisory Boards are set up to guide PM innovation, implementation and to engage patients and citizens. These will advise the work and activities of EP PerMed. Additionally, a citizen engagement strategy has been developed.
The first set of EP PerMed calls (2 JTCs, Fast Track and Venture Creation) support research and innovation by funding transnational collaborative projects, as well as innovation by supporting start-ups and providing guidance for commercialization of PM-related achievements.