The European Commission formally approved a groundbreaking ?2 billion partnership with the pharmaceutical industry in late December designed to speed drug development and compete more effectively in the arena of medical innovation.

The partnership, called the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), is being financed equally by the EC and members of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), the leading trade group for EU drug makers.

Part of the EU's "Lisbon agenda" to regain competitiveness, IMI aims to boost collaboration between commercial companies, universities, and regulators to more rapidly develop "pre-competitive" safety and efficacy tests and accelerate the launch of innovative drugs. It reflects long-standing worries that Europe has been losing out in medical innovation to the U.S., and increasingly to parts of Asia, where large pharmaceutical companies and smaller biotech groups are increasingly placing their research and development functions.

The IMI partly mirrors the "critical path initiative" launched by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in 2004, but European pharmaceutical companies say their version has greater input from industry, and more clearly defined funding.

According to Arthur Higgins, head of Bayer Healthcare of Germany and current president of the EFPIA, "This is the largest public-private partnership for biomedical research in Europe. It clearly gives us a chance to catch up with the U.S."

The IMI will focus on a number of diseases which researchers believe reflect the greatest disease burden and scientific challenges, including brain disorders, cancer, and inflammatory, metabolic and infectious diseases. Any innovations developed through the projects will be openly communicated to researchers but subject to intellectual property protection and payment if they are developed commercially.

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