ICPerMed welcomes the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) as its new member. ASRT is a national coordinating body and funding organisation for research and innovation in Egypt. It serves as Egypt’s national house of expertise, and national think tank in the field of Science, Technology and Innovation. ASRT is the first organisation from Egypt to join ICPerMed.

This is a big step towards ICPerMed’s internationalisation, which is an important aim of ICPerMed in order to align research and funding activities on an international level.

See all ICPerMed Members

The 2^nd ICPerMed family meeting “Staying connected to shape the future for personalised medicine” will take place virtually on October 19, 2023, from around 12:30h to 18:00h CEST.

The aim of this meeting is to continue the collaboration between ICPerMed and its related Coordinating and Support Actions (CSAs), also in the light of the European Partnership for Personalised Medicine (EP PerMed).

The following agenda points are foreseen:

• ICPerMed achievements and publications in support of personalised medicine implementation
• ICPerMed further international widening and personalised-medicine related policy perspectives and activities
• EP PerMed update and planned cooperation with ICPerMed as well as potential support by the ICPerMed Family

This is an internal meeting of ICPerMed and the ICPerMed related CSAs.

ICPerMed organises its 5th Workshop which will focus on and explore the latest developments in technology and innovation that are driving the personalised medicine field. Researchers, academics, clinicians, biotech and industry leaders will have the opportunity to present experiences, promising tools and good practices that would enhance and advance personalised medicine. The workshop is also an opportunity for stakeholders to exchange on the latest advances that value the personalised care in interactive discussions between the speakers and the audience. A promising and fruitful interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral exchange is expected in this event.

The workshop is taking place:

• When: November 14-15, 2023 (1 ½ day event)
• Where: Museum Santa Maria della Scala, Piazza del Duomo, 1, 53100 Siena

The workshop is on invitation only, but few places are still available for on-site participation. If you are interested, please contact us: ICPerMed@anr.fr

The preliminary agenda and other information can be found here.

The ICPerMed Best Practice Recognition yearly aims at encouraging and disseminating best practice examples of implementation in personalised medicine and accelerating and maximising the potential impact of the research findings and learnings gained on implementation in personalised medicine.

This year 21 applications have been received from all around the world, presenting proposals published or developed between January 1st, 2021 and December 31st, 2022.

After evaluation by an external panel the results of the 6^th Best Practice in Personalised Medicine Recognition are in. The first three selected proposals of the sixth edition are:

The first authors of these projects are invited to the ICPerMed Workshop “Advancing Personalised Medicine through Technology Development”, in November 2023 (see above)  to present their results during a plenary session. In addition, the successful candidates will receive a € 500 worth non-cash support for the dissemination of their best practice examples.

ICPerMed thanks all the participants for their commitment.

On September 22, 2023, the third ICPerMed Training “Research Infrastructures in Personalised Medicine: Use, Advantages and Challenges” took place virtually.

More than 90 participants from around the world participated in this fruitful event. The aim of this training was the promotion of the use of European research infrastructures in the biomedical field to better inform researchers on the potential use of biological and medical research infrastructures and the benefits arising from their use, to accelerate excellence, innovation and translation, but also make them aware of the barriers to be overcome.

The training has been divided into four sessions covering different aspects focused on personalised medicine of four European Research Infrastructures and their use. The sessions were chaired and moderated by leading experts in the field.

A summary of the training can be found here.

On June 30, 2023, the ICPerMed State of the Art Report 2022 was published. The report provides information about ICPerMed's activities, the upcoming European Partnership for Personalised Medicine, EP PerMed, and other activities in the field of personalised medicine.

ICPerMed publishes a state-of-the-art report on an annual basis to facilitate the follow-up of the development of personalised medicine research and its implementation throughout Europe and beyond. Therefore, the consortium is continuously mapping activities in the field of personalised medicine to promote achievements and successes in research, innovation and implementation as well as to honour activities of ICPerMed member organisations. A set of initiatives, activities and infrastructures supporting personalised medicine development and implementation are presented in this 2022 report.

Furthermore, ICPerMed’s activities of 2022 are shortly outlined, such as the conference 2022, workshops, and education and training activities as well as presentation of best practices. The report also provides information about the preparation of the EP PerMed proposal and the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for Personalised Medicine (SRIA for PM, 2023).

Download: State-of-the-Art Report 2022

An important goal of ICPerMed is to accelerate the implementation of personalised medicine research results into health systems. In line with this goal, ICPerMed has developed a document that summarises main barriers and gaps encountered by researchers and outlines potential solutions and strategies to overcome these obstacles.

The document is based on a joint effort of the ICPerMed Secretariat and ERA PerMed. The ICPerMed Secretariat conducted and analysed a survey with researchers from personalised medicine projects funded through ERA PerMed Joint Transnational Calls. In addition to the survey, a dedicated panel discussion was organised during the ICPerMed workshop in Pamplona in January 2023.

The derived recommendations to overcome the obstacles encountered will further be considered in the European Partnership for Personalised Medicine (EP PerMed), and will aid the different stakeholders involved in the integration of personalised medicine into the healthcare.

Read more

In order to inform about successful approaches for personalised medicine, ICPerMed features Best Practice Examples on its website. Those are suggested by ICPerMed members and discussed and approved by the ICPerMed governance bodies, according to pre-defined evaluation criteria. Here we would like to introduce the latest Best Practice Example: The Mosaic Initiative – a Launchpad for Personalised Medicine.

Mosaic (Psifas in Hebrew) is Israel's National Genomic Medicine Initiative. It is developing a unique infrastructure for facilitating large scale prospective studies based on advanced integration of community and hospitals longitudinal retrospective clinical data, fully sequenced genomes and a platform for patient recall and follow up studies. 

It is designed to collect health data and biological samples (for Whole Genome Sequencing) from hundreds of thousands of volunteers establishing a community of participants. The information obtained will accelerate the development of medical care specifically tailored to the diverse ethnicities that comprise the Israeli population.

Read more

IC2PerMed: Start of the delegation visits

IC2PerMed is stepping into action to make up for exciting events that had to be postponed due to COVID-19. IC2PerMed’s journey began with the first Delegation Visit from April 17 to 21, 2023, spanning the cities of Rome and Milan, in collaboration with Sino-EU PerMed. This gave the European IC2PerMed partners the opportunity of meeting the Chinese partners of IC2PerMed in person, along with renowned Chinese experts.

On May 26, 2023, partners congregated in Geneva for a prestigious High-Level Symposium. This gathering served as the platform for the presentation and discussion of the project's roadmap, showcasing its achievements in the presence of international key opinion leaders.

On July 12 and 13, 2023, the Exploitation Workshop took place in Nice. During this workshop, the partners engaged in insightful discussions on the dissemination of the valuable results accumulated over the years.

All these events have prepared the way for the upcoming Delegation Visit to China, scheduled for October 2023. In Beijing, the project partners will convene once more, this time to deliberate on the project's outcomes before a distinguished audience of European and Chinese experts. This occasion promises to reinvigorate the partnerships and advance the mission of promoting personalised medicine on a global scale, fostering collaboration between Europe and China.

EU-Africa PerMed – Action Plan preparation and 2^nd Summer School

EU-Africa PerMed started the preparation of its Action Plan that will be a roadmap for facilitating, fostering and promoting the collaboration of Africa and Europe in personalised medicine. Recommendations for collaboration and concrete actions will be described in form of Research Activities and Research Supporting Activities to be implemented at different levels and supported by multi-stakeholder consortia.

Therewith, EU-Africa PerMed will also support the implementation of the new joint AU-EU innovation agenda that was adapted on July 19, 2023, by the African Union and the European Union. The innovation agenda aims to transform and increase the innovative capacities and achievements of African and European research & innovation into concrete outputs, e.g. products, services, businesses or job opportunities. Precision (personalised) medicine is mentioned as long-term action for public health.

The registration for the 2^nd EU-Africa PerMed Summer School on "Implementation of Personalised Medicine research" is open! Free participation. Grants are availability. Don't miss this opportunity to learn and share your experience in the field of personalised medicine:

• 3-day (hybrid format): May 21-23, 2024
• KCB Leadership Center, Karen, Nairobi, Kenya
• Registration closes on October 19, 2023
• Draft Agenda

EU-Africa PerMed website
X: ‎@EU_AfricaPerMed / LinkedIn: @ EU-AFRICA PerMed Project
Join EU-Africa PerMeds public discussions

PROPHET - update

One year after the launch of the PROPHET project in September 2022, the initiative can look back at many activities. PROPHET partners have participated to numerous events throughout Europe to showcase the project results and discuss with its stakeholder groups.

PROPHET partners have gathered in Valencia beginning of October 2023, in the Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe (CIPF), to discuss and exchange on the project and ongoing activities.

Be sure to check out PROPHET’s social media account (LinkedIn) and its website to learn more about the project, the latest results and activities.

Background information:

PROPHET is a Coordination and Support Action funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme ‘Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society’ and is aligned with the International Consortium for Personalized Medicine (ICPerMed). The overall objective of the “Personalised Prevention Roadmap for the future healthcare in Europe” (PROPHET) project is to design a Strategic Research Innovation Agenda (SRIA), co-created together with a large panel of stakeholders gathered in the PROPHET Stakeholder Forum, to adopt personalised prevention approaches in EU health systems. Personalised prevention strategies are in fact only possible if citizens, health professionals and policy makers are all aware of their potential and have the knowledge and resources to design and implement them.

EU-LAC PerMed – Virtual Helpdesk

One of the activities of the EU-LAC PerMed project was the Virtual Helpdesk for clinical trials regulatory and funding information. It aimed to provide information on regulatory and funding agencies regarding clinical trials in Latin America and Europe, and to facilitate the establishment of partnerships in clinical trials on Personalised Medicine across countries and regions. This information is now available as a report for download.