Nordic Call on Personalised Medicine (NordicPermed)

12.2.2018

Personalised medicine (PM) is an interdisciplinary field that will be high on the health research and innovation agenda for years to come.

Realising the PM vision will require changes within research and innovation policy and practice, regulatory and legal frameworks, payment mechanisms, health economics considerations and business models. The implementation of PM will therefore require that a variety of stakeholders such as researchers, public and private health services, industry, regulatory authorities, patients and policy makers must work together to address key challenges.

The Icelandic Centre for Research (RANNÍS), Innovaatiorahoituskeskus Business Finland, Innovation Fund Denmark , the Research Council of Norway and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems ( VINNOVA ), in collaboration with NordForsk , are launching a call for proposals with the aim of funding Nordic projects that contribute to implementation of PM in health care. The call builds on strengths and synergies in the Nordic countries. The total funding budget is EUR15 million.

The overall goals of NordicPermed are:

• to promote implementation of new personalised medicine approaches for more effective and sustainable health care for the benefit of patients, citizens and society;
• to improve the Nordic position in personalised medicine by creating a platform for research, innovation and business that will build on Nordic strengths;
• to increase collaboration between companies, research-performing organisations and public organisations (hospitals and relevant agencies) and civil society;
• to promote Responsible Research and Innovation perspectives in personalised medicine within a Nordic context including diversity, inclusion, openness and transparency;
• to contribute to the action plan of the EU initiative International Consortium for Personalised Medicine.

The scope of the call focuses on three challenges related to implementation of PM:

• Data: Knowledge and value generation, based on use of cross-Nordic omics and health care data, for PM purposes, leading to new PM hypotheses to e.g. be tested in the clinic, and for supporting development of best data practices (access, quality and harmonisation) across the Nordic countries.
• Clinical/regulatory: Development and implementation of solutions to overcome clinical and regulatory challenges related to PM.
• Health economics: Research and development of health economics models that are useful in a PM setting.

Applicants

• Applications may address one or more of the three challenges.
• Small and large private enterprises as well as universities and other public research institutions and hospitals in the Nordic countries are eligible to apply for funding.
• The formal applicant must be a legal entity based in one of the co-funding countries.
• The applicant consortium must consist of participants from at least three co-funding Nordic countries, alternatively from two co-funding Nordic countries and one third country.

Details

• The NordicPermed call for proposals will be administered by NordForsk.
• The individual members of the funded applicant consortia will be funded by their national funding agencies.
  The expected funding available per project is in the order of EUR 1-3 million for a duration of up to 4 years. The amount of funding available per project partner is subject to national rules and regulations. The applicants should consult their national funding agencies for further information.
• Full details of the call are expected to be published on the RANNIS website and on the websites of the funding partners by March 2018.