IMI Stakeholder Forum 2014

New: Videos from the event are now available here.

Around 250 people attended and 200 more watched the live webstream of the IMI Stakeholder Forum 2014, which took place on 21 May at the Hotel Crowne Plaza - Le Palace in Brussels, Belgium. Participants included policy-makers, industry decision-makers, SMEs, patient groups, academia and researchers, representatives of other public-private partnerships (PPPs) and research funding organisations.

About the IMI Stakeholder Forum 2014

The IMI Stakeholder Forum is a unique opportunity to learn about and discuss IMI’s latest results, activities and plans. This year’s event featured two sessions: in the morning, a strong scientific focus on breakthrough scientific trends in stem cells research; the afternoon focused on the next phase of IMI, in order to open a debate with all IMI’s stakeholders on how to drive health innovation under Horizon 2020.

Stem cells: breakthroughs & collaborative research

The stakeholder forum science session focused on the latest breakthrough on induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Stem cells have been the long-awaited promise of regenerative medicine. Since their discovery, research on iPS cells has shown immense potential towards developing a personalised medicine approach for patients, efficacy and toxicity testing of new therapies using iPS cells, and drug research and development. 
Several IMI projects are leading stem cells research in the EU within the framework of IMI.  The goal of this session was to explore the future direction of stem cell research, as well as how it is revolutionising the search for innovative therapies, and the way public-private partnerships are contributing towards speeding up this quest.

IMI 2: the EU flagship for health innovation under H2020

The afternoon session of the IMI stakeholder forum focused on the next phase of IMI. Taking stock of the results achieved to date, this event aimed to open a debate with all IMI’s stakeholders on how to make the best of the successes to date, and bring the programme one step forward. 
This session featured keynote speeches by representatives of the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), followed by a roundtable discussion with key IMI stakeholders.

Agenda

For more information about the event programme, please download the final agenda

Presentations

Keynote speeches

• Stem cells: a global perspective
  Ole Isacson, Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Neuroregeneration Research at McLean Hospital
• The impact of IMI project outcomes in industry
  Ruth McKernan, CEO, Neusentis, a Pzer Research Unit
• Delivering the new science to patients
  Richard Bergström, Director General, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA)

Focus on IMI projects

• StemBANCC: Shifting Drug Discovery Paradigms
  Zameel Cader, University of Oxford, IMI StemBANCC project
• EBiSC: the European Bank for induced pluripotent Stem Cells
  Aidan Courtney, Roslin Cells Ltd, IMI EBISC project
• Modeling ASD using human pluripotent stem cells
  Ravi Jagasia, Human Neural Stem Cell Lab, Roche, IMI EU-AIMS project
• Why do we need stem cells to help us make safer medicines?
  Christopher Goldring, University of Liverpool, IMI MIP-DILI project