News
New IMI-funded initiative will build a European platform for data and sample sharing to accelerate the discovery and validation of biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases
The European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND), an Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) – funded public-private partnership, will integrate existing European initiatives to build an infrastructure that facilitates access to biological samples and data in order to accelerate biomarker discovery and validation and potentially aid the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Lygature was involved in the set-up phase of EPND, and will provide partnership management, aid in stakeholder engagement, provide communication support as well as bring regulatory expertise to the project.
Currently, there is no treatment that prevents or modifies the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. In Europe these conditions affect millions of people. Despite research efforts in the last year to accelerate biomarker discovery, there are few secure and accessible ways for the discovery and sharing of clinical samples and data within the neurodegenerative disease research community.
EPND co-Coordinator Pieter Jelle Visser, Associate Professor at the University of Maastricht comments: “Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s cost millions of lives and will create an estimated economic burden in Europe of €267 billion by 2030. EPND will answer this massive challenge with a solution on the same scale, bringing together teams, samples and data from across the continent.”
The discovery of biomarkers detecting the early onset of neurodegenerative diseases is a necessary step towards the development of effective treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. These biomarkers aid with the assessment of treatment efficacy and patient stratification. To this end, EPND will spend the next five years building a self-sustaining network that will support the discovery, harmonization, storage and analysis of high-quality clinical samples and data from neurodegenerative disease research.
Niranjan Bose, Managing Director of Health and Life Sciences at Gates Ventures said: “Gates Ventures is delighted to join UCB as EFPIA co-Lead for EPND. With the potential to make data accessible from more than 120,000 research participants, in partnership with over 60 European cohorts, EPND will provide vital information to scientists, researchers and clinicians. It will help accelerate the development of innovative biomarkers and improve access to biosamples, enabling validation of early detection tools."
EPND will bring together 29 partners from the public and private sectors and will be managed by two public partners, University of Maastricht and University of Leicester, and two private partners, Gates Ventures and UCB Biopharma. EPND will leverage and connect existing European research infrastructures, including BBMRI, EATRIS, ELIXIR and EBRAINS. EPND receives funding from the European Commission and European pharmaceutical industry (EFPIA), under the auspices of the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking. EPND has an initial budget of €19,005,502.
The partners involved in the project are:
- Maastricht University, Netherlands
- University of Leicester, United Kingdom
- Gates Ventures, United States
- UCB Biopharma SRL, Belgium
- AC Immune SA, Switzerland
- University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands
- Alzheimer Europe, Luxembourg
- Aridhia, United Kingdom
- Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Infrastructure -European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC), Austria
- BMD Software, Portugal
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Switzerland
- Deutsches Zentrum fur Neurodegeneratieve Erkrangungen (DZNE), Germany
- EATRIS ERIC (EATRIS), Netherlands
- F. Hoffman-La Roche AG, Switzerland
- Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Belgium
- Kings College London, United Kingdom
- Luxembourg Institute of Health, Luxembourg
- Medicines Evaluation Board (CBG-MEB), Netherlands
- Novartis Pharma AG, Switzerland
- Sanofi Aventis Recherche & Développement, France
- Stichting Lygature, Netherlands
- Stichting VU-Vumc, Netherlands
- Svar Life Science AB, Sweden
- Takeda Pharmaceuticals International AG, Switzerland
- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd., Israel
- Université de Genève, Switzerland
- University of Gothenburg, Sweden
- University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
For more information, contact info@epnd.org or visit www.epnd.org