Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)
Call Announcement & Projects
The call documents of the EP PerMed JTC2024 were published on 2 January 2024. The call is closed, but if you are interested in the original documents, you can read them here. The 27 funded research consortia can be found in the EP PerMed Project Database.
The European Partnership for Personalised Medicine (EP PerMed) Joint Transnational Call for Proposals 2024 (JTC2024) marks a significant step in aligning strategies and advancing collaborative research efforts in the field of personalised medicine (PM) between different countries and European national regions. Aiming to foster innovation and reinforce the competitiveness of European research, the call brought together 38 funding organisations from 23 countries and 10 regions. This European Union (EU) co-funded initiative seeks to support cutting-edge projects focused on the identification or validation of targets for personalised medicine approaches, a key component in advancing personalised healthcare.
The JTC2024 received an impressive response from the research community, with 283 eligible pre-proposals submitted. Following a competitive selection process, 64 consortia were invited to submit full proposals, and 27 outstanding projects were selected for funding, representing a total investment of 39.2 million Euros.
The funded projects cover a diverse range of disease areas and involve 154 research groups funded by 34 funding organisations across 23 countries, showcasing the broad geographical distribution and strong collaborative spirit of the consortia.
JTC2024 Call Statistics: Key Insights
The projects funded under the EP PerMed JTC2024 were classified using the Health Research Classification System (HRCS) in order to analyse the main health categories that the projects are addressing, as well as the main research activities that are carried out by the projects. Nearly 50% of the projects (13 out of 27) address cancer and neoplasms, 11% (3 out of 27) address neurological diseases/disorders and the other 9 health categories that are studied are addressed by 1 or 2 projects (figure 1).
When it comes to the research activities of the funded consortia, more than half of the consortia (n=14) are working on Detection, Screening and Diagnosis studies and 30% are performing research activities related to Development of Treatments and Therapeutic Interventions, as can be seen in figure 2. Five more projects are working on research activities in 3 more categories – 3 projects are doing underpinning research, one project aetiology, and one Evaluation of Treatments and Therapeutic Interventions.
EP PerMed JTC2024 funded projects exemplify transnational collaboration, with coordinators coming from 10 different countries and consortia partners from 24 different countries (as can be seen in figure 3).
Furthermore, the transnational aspect can also be seen in every funded consortium, since the majority of the consortia (78%) have 4 or more countries involved (when the mandatory eligibility criteria is 3 countries). Furthermore, over 50% of the consortia have 5 or more countries involved, as can be seen in figure 4.
The contribution of national and regional funding organisations is critical to the success of JTC2024. Figure 5 illustrates the number of partners supported by each funding organisation. This highlights the significant role of regional funders, who enhance the reach and inclusivity of personalised medicine research.
When looking at the consortium composition (figure 6), it could be noted that the majority of the consortia include 5-7 partners (78%). The remaining consortia include 4 partners (18%) and one consortium includes 9 partners. None of the funded projects includes only 3 partners.
Seven of the funded consortia made use of the widening option and have added an additional new partner in the second stage, thus allowing inclusion of underrepresented countries and regions in the funded projects.
The overall distribution of partners between academia, clinical/public health research sector and the private sector is as follows: 58% of all the consortia partners are from academia, 25% of the partners are from the clinical/ public health research sector and 8.4% are from the private for-profit sector, and the same from private non-profit partners (see also figure 7). Of the 12 partners that are from a non-profit entity, 7 are patient organisations. Overall, 22% of the projects have a patient organisation as a consortium partner.
The JTC2024 consortia demonstrate sex balance, with 44% of coordinators and 43% of partners being females (Figure 8).
The statistics from JTC2024 reflect the diversity of the funded projects, spanning a wide range of health categories and research activities. With robust international collaboration and involvement from academia, clinical sectors, and patient organisations, these projects demonstrate the collective commitment to advancing personalised medicine and addressing complex healthcare challenges globally.