"The funding of basic research in the broad field of personalised medicine is starting to pay off. Our conference programme showed that today patients already benefit from ground-breaking personalised therapies, e.g. for lung cancer or metabolic diseases", said outgoing ICPerMed Chair Mairéad O'Driscoll at the conference. "Fast developing technologies, successful biomedical research and wise policy making has led to several excellent pilots in national and regional health care systems across Europe. Policy makers, research funding agencies, researchers and health care systems need to learn from this good practice to create benefits for all citizens and patients in Europe and beyond", said O’Driscoll.
Mairéad O'Driscoll, Director of Research Strategy and Funding at the Health Research Board (Ireland), has been Chair of ICPerMed since November 2016. At the conference, O’Driscoll passed the Chair to Jan-Ingvar Jönsson, who is currently Secretary General for Medicine and Health at the Swedish Research Council and who was elected as ICPerMed Chair due to the regular election period of two years. Jönsson thanked O’Driscoll for her valuable work for ICPerMed and said, "Negotiations for the next European framework programme for research and innovation are already in progress. Horizon Europe and national programmes need to foster a coordinated and cross-sectorial approach to personalised medicine research. ICPerMed will continue to provide the evidence needed for qualified decisions at all relevant levels in Europe". Jönsson announced the development of the ICPerMed Vision Paper 2030, which is based on an expert survey as well as results of the conference, and will be published in spring 2019.
The first ICPerMed conference was opened by high-level representatives of the German Federal Ministries for Research & Education and Health. This, together with the welcoming speeches of representatives of the European Commission (DG RTD & CNECT) and two Members of the European Parliament, underlined the outstanding position of personalised medicine and ICPerMed in the European research agenda and at political level. The conference programme was dedicated to successful examples for translation of personalised medicine research into added value for the patient, such as the routine implementation of personalised care for lung cancer or rare diseases. High-level key note talks on different aspects of personalised medicine broadened the conference perspective and provided international views on personalised medicine in China, India and the US.
While honouring the awardees of the ICPerMed ‘Best Practice in Personalised Medicine’ Award 2018, ICPerMed opened the application phase for the ICPerMed Recognition 2019 to honour, encourage, promote and disseminate outstanding best practice examples in personalised medicine. The deadline for proposal submission is 21 January 2019. In addition, representatives of the ERA-Net Cofund ERA PerMed announced the launch of their Joint Transnational Call 2019 on the side-lines of the conference. ERA PerMed is closely linked to ICPerMed and will foster the implementation of the ICPerMed Action Plan by funding transnational research projects in the field of PM. Lectures and video recordings from the live stream will be uploaded on the website within the upcoming weeks.
The ICPerMed conference 'Personalised Medicine in Action' was organized by the ICPerMed Secretariat and was supported by the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Federal Ministry of Health. ICPerMed provides a platform to initiate and support communication and exchange on personalised medicine research, funding and implementation. ICPerMed assembles over 40 European and international partners representing ministries, funding agencies and the European Commission. With the support of the ICPerMed Secretariat, the consortium works on coordinating and supporting research to develop approaches for personalised medicine.
