Michel Goldman, IMI Executive Director. Credit: Thierry Goorden, EFPIAMAURICIO LIMA/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom

In March, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) launched its second wave of eight newly funded research projects with a €172 ($242.7) million budget. The IMI's €2 ($2.8) billion investment is Europe's largest public-private enterprise collaboration aimed at strengthening the continent's “competitiveness and innovativeness”. Although purporting to “put small companies first,” IMI's agenda has to a large extent been set by large pharmaceutical companies, with the European Commission (EC) providing funding for affiliated academic research (Nat. Biotechnol 26, 717–718, 2008). But for many of the academic research institutions participating in the project, complaints are intensifying that IMI skews benefits too much in favor of large industry. Last September, for example, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) published a letter online (http://www.leru.org/index.php/public/news/imi/) complaining that academic institutions participating in IMI projects lose money and are increasingly reluctant to take part.

The IMI is funded jointly by the EC and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations in Brussels—industry is required to at least match EC funding, in cash or in-kind. The initiative aims to develop tools and technologies to facilitate drug discovery. The scope of the newly funded projects is broad: from oncology biomarkers to software platforms and detection assays (see Table 1). The next wave of IMI funded projects will be announced later this year and a fourth wave soon after.

Table 1 IMI 2nd phase projects
Full size table

For an academic partner, IMI funds cover only 75% of direct projects costs and 20% of indirect project costs, which results in loss-making projects. This diverges from the EU's Framework Programme 7, which covers 100% of direct costs and 60% of indirect costs—a disincentive to participate

Moreover, IMI's intellectual property agreement heavily favors the industrial partner's financial interests, says Michael Browne, head of European Research and Development at University College, London. For instance, the agreement would enable industry partners' affiliates to exploit any technology developed during an IMI project, without having to consult the research consortium, says Browne. Normally academic partners would require companies to list specific affiliates in the agreement to limit this knowledge sharing. “The wording of the IP policy is ambiguous as well,” he adds. It assumes that academic partners would just sign over any knowledge they bring into the project.

The end result is that the academic institutions “get short shrift from both ends,” he says. The fallout is that research institutions are increasingly leery of participating in IMI. University College London now requires any researcher who wants to participate in an IMI project to show how they intend to make up the funding gap. Both Oxford University and King's College, London, in addition to several European universities, have similar policies in place, says Browne.

The IP issues raised in the LERU letter were addressed by a IMI working group, and last November the IMI published a new IP Guidance Note (http://www.imi.europa.eu/content/intellectual-property-policy) and several documents clarifying IP terms. IMI has also appointed, Kim DeRijck, as a representative to ensure academics should not feel disadvantaged when engaging in IP negotiations. Sarah Black, at IMI external relations, says IMI has noted no lack of applicants for IMI research grants.