EP PerMed Joint Transnational Call 2024

EP PerMed is launching the first Joint Transnational Call (JTC2024) for proposals on “Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)”. In total, 39 funding organisations of 24 countries and 10 European national regions participate in this call with a budget of over 45 Mio€. This call is cofunded by the European Union.

With its first JTC, EP PerMed aims to fund research that fosters the identification or validation of targets for personalised medicine (PM) approaches. The overall objectives of the JTC2024 are to

• Support research projects in human health aiming at identifying or validating targets for personalised medicine approaches in combination with development of companion biomarkers or other markers to allow for monitoring of treatment outcomes and patient stratification;
• Encourage and enable interdisciplinary collaborations by combining pre-clinical and clinical research in translational projects, and multi-actor research by engaging a range of other relevant disciplines such as bioinformatics/health informatics/data research, ELSA research, implementation research or health economics research connected to the proposed research topic, including end-user perspective analysis to empower the implementation of PM; and
• Encourage cross-sectorial collaborations, by including the private sector (e.g. SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises), industry, as well as regulatory/HTA agencies and patient organisations.

The core of each application must be the identification or validation of a target for personalised medicine approaches in combination with companion biomarker research. In addition, the consortia can address accompanying research if this is necessary for the identification or validation of the target and if appropriate to the development status of the project. EP PerMed strongly encourages the active involvement of end-users in the proposed research projects.

Depending on the development phase of the research, projects can focus on the following stages:

• Stage 1: Identification of novel targets for the development of a concrete and feasible PM approach, based on a clearly circumscribed biological/clinical hypothesis, in combination with companion biomarker research. Applicants are advised to use existing clinical data as a basis for target identification.
• Stage 2: Development or validation of already known but not yet established targets for a PM approach, in combination with accompanying biomarker research. This includes target validation in vitro and in animal models (proof-of-principle studies), early pharmacological and toxicity tests and, if feasible, exploratory clinical studies to demonstrate clinical applicability (proof-of-concept studies).

Exclusion: Research focussing only on new biomarker discovery. Projects submitted to the JTC2024 focussing on the identification of new biomarkers as the sole purpose of the research are out of the scope.

Stages are not mutually exclusive. They define the overall scope of the JTC2024 to which all proposals must comply.

Research projects in all disease areas are encouraged. Consortia are required to start from a relevant clinical (unmet) need and to include activities that support a comprehensive and efficient uptake of the developed PM approach in clinical practice, with the aim that “Today’s research is tomorrow’s healthcare”.

Please refer to the Call Text of the JTC2024 for further information and definitions.

Important dates:

• Opening of the online submission tool: 12 January 2024
• Information day introducing the JTC2024 to the research community: January 15, 2024, 14:00-16:00 (CET) (registration link will be available soon)
• Submission deadline for pre-proposals: 05 March 2024, 17:00 CET
• Submission deadline for full-proposals: 20 June 2024, 17:00 CEST

Para ampliar esta información, o para cualquier otra consulta, no dudes en contactar con Elena Portero (eportero.iacs@aragon.es)

Call text