Important lessons following IHI’s broker event

The goal of the event was to plant the seeds for new, effective consortia. IHI presented the content of the call topics and outlined the rules for participation. Research priorities, call conditions, budgets and specific opportunities for SMEs were all covered. The second part of the day completely focused on consortia building.

Differences between IHI and IMI

Wim-Jan Koot reflects: “Although IHI is a follow up of IMI, there are important differences that you need to be aware of if you want to participate in an IHI call. I noticed many participants were struggling with the idea of collaborating in single stage calls, since IMI mainly organized two stage calls. In these type of calls, public consortia (excluding EFPIA) first had to submit their proposal for review by IMI. The public consortium with the highest ranked proposal would then have to team up with pre-identified EFPIA partners (private parties) to form the final consortium. In the second stage, this consortium would then have the opportunity to submit the full proposal.   

Although IHI also published two two-stage call topics, the majority of the current call topics are single stage calls, where both public and private parties have to form a consortium right from the start and jointly submit a proposal. During the meeting it became clear that IHI strongly prefers to have MedTech and pharma parties, as well as private parties participate in such a consortium. Although the process is set out on the IHI website, for most individual stakeholders it’s not easy to figure out how to do this. Lygature has a lot of experience in both type of calls and with such complex partnerships, so we are happy to support both public and private organisations in this process and support them in their collaboration and consortium creation.”

Focus on data driven projects

Rick van Nuland adds: “An important conclusion is that most call topics have a large data component. These projects focus for instance on how to combine large datasets from different sources and how to deal with the infrastructure. Lygature has experience in supporting multi-center projects, with a focus on data stewardship across clinical, imaging, biobanking, and experimental domains. In addition, we currently expanded our legal & ethical expertise with the integration of the MLCF foundation.”

The importance of a neutral enabler

The key to a successful partnership is to work on a common goal and value all stakeholders’ individual interests at the same time. This is exactly what Lygature offers: an independent partner to guide complex collaborations and provide much needed infrastructural components to the consortium. Are you interested in one of the IHI calls and want to know how we can help you? Have a look at our IHI page or contact Wim-Jan Koot, Jon de Vlieger or Rick van Nuland.