Mission

EMIF’s mission is to improve access to human health data, thus enabling new insights into diseases and treatments. As part of the broader European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), EMIF aims to create an environment that allows for efficient reuse of existing health data. A common information framework (EMIF-Platform) will link and facilitate access to diverse medical and research data sources. The project’s main objective is to create an environment that allows for efficient reuse of existing health data.

To ensure immediate applicability, the EMIF project includes two specific therapeutic research topics: the onset of AD (EMIF-AD) and metabolic complications of obesity (EMIF-Metabolics). The AD topic aims to discover and validate biomarkers of AD onset in the preclinical and prodromal phases as well as study disease progression and identify high-risk individuals for therapeutic trials for prevention. The Metabolic topic aims to discover and evaluate biomarkers for the risk of metabolic complications in obesity and to identify high-risk populations for intervention purposes. Collaboration between the two topics will ensure the development and delivery of an efficient information framework.

Consortium History

2013: Start date

Structure & Governance

The Operations Team is concerned with the day-to-day aspects of the project and consists of the following members:

Bart Vannieuwenhuyse, coordinator, EMIF
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV

Carlos Diaz, overall project manager
Synapse Research Management Partners S.L

Johan van der Lei, managing entity
Erasmus Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Simon Lovestone, co-coordinator, EMIF
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Ulf Smith, topic lead, EMIF-Metabolics
Göteborgs Universitet

The Program Board will define the strategic focus of the overall project, manage the overall integration of the three topics, and ensure that the overall objectives of EMIF are delivered. As such, it will provide a cross-topic forum for further in-depth scientific debate of cross-topic issues to ensure synergy and optimization of the overall project. The members include the operations team members and the following individuals:

Dawn Waterworth, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lead, EMIF-Metabolics
GlaxoSmithKline

Dipak Kalra, representative, EMIF-Platform
University College London

Mike Krams, EFPIA lead, EMIF-AD
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV

Patrick Genyn, EFPIA lead, EMIF-Platform
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV

Pieter Deurinck, representative, EMIF-Platform
UCB

Pieter-Jelle Visser, topic lead, EMIF-AD
VU Medical Center Amsterdam

Ulf Smith, topic lead, EMIF-Metabolics
Göteborgs Universitet

The Project Management Office (PMO) will support the successful implementation of this project on the scientific, financial, and management levels. As such, it will provide integral support to the coordinator and managing entity on all the aspects of project management, including financial, legal, risk, and knowledge management, internal and external communication, and administrative and reporting issues. The members of the PMO are as follows:

Ameli Schwalber, project manager, EMIF-AD
Concentris Research Management GmbH

Angel Honrado, project manager, EMIF-Platform
Synapse Research Management Partners S.L

Bart Vannieuwenhuyse, coordinator, EMIF
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV

Carlos Diaz, overall project manager
Synapse Research Management Partners S.L

Caroline Sage, project manager, EMIF-PMO
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV

Els Veldeman, project manager, EMIF-Platform
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV

Eva Molero, project manager, EMIF-Platform
Synapse Research Management Partners S.L

Graham Somers, project manager, EMIF-Metabolics
GlaxoSmithKline

Martha C. Chapelsky, project manager, EMIF-Metabolics
GlaxoSmithKline

Moritz Eckert, project manager, EMIF-AD
Concentris Research Management GmbH

Sandra Pla, project manager, EMIF-Platform
Synapse Research Management Partners S.L

The General Assembly will function as a forum for general project follow-up, awareness on the project status, and internal communication. The General Assembly is responsible for decisions that according to the grant agreement must be made by all partners.

EMIF will engage three separate Scientific Advisory Boards (SABs), one for each of the three topics. The SABs include experts nominated by the respective consortia to provide advice about the corresponding topic. Each year, there will be a joint meeting of the three SABs and the Program Board to discuss project progress. The boards are as follows:

Scientific Advisory Board, EMIF-Platform

Financing

EMIF receives support from the IMI Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement no. 115372, resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and the EFPIA in kind contribution. The IMI has contributed €24.4 million, the EFPIA has contributed €24.1 million in kind, and other sources have contributed €7.9 million, for a total cost of €56.4 million. 

Intellectual Property

The IMI intellectual property (IP) policy governs the IP regime of all projects funded by the IMI JU.  To assist with specific IP queries, IMI has set up a dedicated IP Helpdesk, which can be contacted by emailing IMI-IP-Helpdesk@imi.europa.eu. The IMI IP policy can be accessed at the following address: http://www.imi.europa.eu/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/imi-ipr-policy01august2007_en.pdf

Data Sharing

According to IMI’s IP policy, the participants undertake to disseminate the data as soon as reasonably practicable but not later than one year after the termination or expiry of the project. The project agreement shall include a description of the material, which must be disseminated in accordance with the IP policy and referenced in the grant agreement. If the participants do not disseminate within such time periods without good reason, then the Executive Office has the right to disseminate such results in a manner consistent with the grant agreement.

In 2013, four papers were published on behalf of EMIF. The list of publications can be accessed at http://www.emif.eu/emif/scientific-publications/publications

Links/Social Media Feed

Points of Contact

Bart Vannieuwenhuyse
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV
phone: +32 14 600320
email: bvannieu@its.jnj.com

Simon Lovestone
King’s College London
phone: +44 20 7848 0239
email: simon.lovestone@kcl.ac.uk

Johan van der Lei
Erasmus Universitair
Medisch Centrum Rotterdam
phone: +31 10 70 441 22
email: j.vanderlei@erasmusmc.nl

Sponsors & Partners