IMI Stakeholder Forum 2019

Start Date 12/06/2019
Brussels, Belgium

The IMI Stakeholder Forum 2019 took place on Wednesday 12 June in Brussels, Belgium. The theme was "Brain health and disease in the digital era - 2020 & beyond".

Outputs

The goal of this event was to explore ideas for IMI Call topics that converge around the brain health / digital technologies space - the outputs are summarised in this document.

Agenda

Please find here the agenda

Outline of the event and presentations

  • Welcome – Pierre Meulien, Executive Director, Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
    Video recording

Opening

  • Wolfgang Burtscher, Deputy Director-General, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission
    Video recording
  • Dhaval Patel, Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, UCB
    Video recording

Setting the scene

  • Luca Pani, Professor of Psychiatry at University of Miami & Professor of Pharmacology at Università di Modena E Reggio Emilia & VP for Regulatory Strategy and Market Access Innovation, VeraSci - USA
    Presentation
    Video recording

Healthy lifestyles, prevention and diagnosis

Panel discussion: Brain Health and prevention

Healthcare is shifting from reactive treatment and care to early detection and prevention, and at the same time patients are taking an increasingly active role in managing their health. This session discussed how different stakeholders are engaging with digital health technologies, and how they are demonstrating reliability and performance of these technologies while assuring compliance with legal, regulatory and ethical requirements.

  • Vaibhav Narayan, Vice President Research and Therapeutic Area IT, Janssen
  • Miia Kivipelto, Professor of Clinical Geriatric Epidemiology, Department of Neurobiology, Karolinska Institutet
  • Peter Peumans, Senior Vice President life science technologies, imec
  • Matthew Hotopf, RADAR-CNS co-lead, King’s College London
  • Kim Baden-Kristensen, Co-founder & CEO, Brain+
  • Katerina M. Polychronopoulos, Research Associate, University of Vienna
  • Margaret Walker, Executive director, EUFAMI
    Video recording

Panel discussion: Diagnosis

Brain disorders have a very complex biology and are still poorly understood. Diagnosis is still based on symptoms. This session explored the potential of digital technologies to facilitate timely and accurate diagnosis.

  • Magali Haas, CEO & President, Cohen Veterans Bioscience
  • Viktor Jirsa, Director of the Institute de Neurosciences des Systèmes & Director of Research CNRS, Aix-Marseille University
  • Emilio Merlo Pich, Vice President, Takeda Pharmaceuticals
  • Paola Barbarino, CEO, Alzheimer's Disease International
  • Corinne de Vries, Head of Science and Innovation Support, European Medicines Agency
  • Michelle Lax, Vice President Imaging, IXICO
  • Donata Kurpas, Associate Professor, Wroclaw Medical University
    Video recording

Treatment & care

Panel discussion: Treatment

This session discussed questions such as how can digital technologies enhance the development and delivery of pharmacological interventions and what is needed for digital technologies to become part of the treatment possibilities for brain disorders.

  • Matthew Hotopf, RADAR-CNS co-lead, King’s College London
  • Francesca Sofia, Scientific Director, Italian Epilepsy Federation
  • Amy Bilderbeck, Senior Scientist and Experimental Psychologist, P1vital Ltd
  • Diane Jooris, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Oncomfort
  • Luca Pani, Professor of Psychiatry at University of Miami & Professor of Pharmacology at Università di Modena E Reggio Emilia & VP for Regulatory Strategy and Market Access Innovation, VeraSci - USA
  • Hugh Marston, Head of Translational Neuroscience, Eli Lilly UK
    Video recording

Panel discussion: Care

An array of promising digital brain health solutions are being proposed to facilitate the healthcare of people with brain disorders. The panel discussed issues like usability, usefulness, and acceptance of these technologies by the patients and their carers.

  • Stecy Yghemonos, Executive Director, Eurocarers
  • Hilary Doxford, Dementia Advocate
  • Peter Paniccia, Hilary Doxford's Husband & Supporter
  • Monika Lanzenberger, Research Programme Officer, Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission
  • Henriëtte van der Roest, Senior researcher, ZorgDNA
  • Kim Baden-Kristersen, Co-founder & CEO, Brain+
    Video recording

Feedback from IMI Scientific Committee Members

Closing

High level panel discussion

  • Despina Spanou, Director for Digital Society, Trust and Cybersecurity, Directorate-General Communications Network, Content and Technology, European Commission
  • Salvatore D’Acunto, Head of Unit, Health Technology and Cosmetics, Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
  • Vaibhav Narayan, Vice President Research and Therapeutic Area IT, Janssen
  • Casper Garos, Chair of COCIR Research and Innovation Focus Group & Head of Public-Private Partnerships, Philips
  • Bert De Colvenaer, Executive Director, ECSEL
  • Adriana Maggi, JPND Executive Board Vice-Chair and Professor of Biotechnology and Pharmacology, University of Milan
  • Lenny Shallcross, Executive Director, World Dementia Council
  • Jean Georges, Executive Director, Alzheimer Europe
    Video recording
  • Martin Seychell, Deputy Director General for Health, DG SANTE, European Commission
    Video recording
  • Nathalie Moll, Director-General, EFPIA
    Video recording
  • Pierre Meulien, Executive Director, Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
    Video recording

Theme - Brain health and disease in the digital era - 2020 & beyond

The theme of the 2019 IMI Stakeholder forum was ’Brain health and disease in the digital era - 2020 & beyond

As the digital revolution drives changes in every aspect of our lives, it is also entering into the mainstream of brain health research. Advances in digital health technologies are allowing us to acquire and handle big biological data, and to mine this data with computational tools at an unprecedented level.

At the same time, healthcare is shifting from reactive treatment and care to prevention, while patients are taking an increasingly active role in managing their health. Alongside these trends, mobile, sensing and wearable technologies are developing a whole range of new digital brain health solutions that are helping patients to gain greater insights into their health and report their experiences, while allowing better monitoring by clinicians.

We explored ways of building IMI Call topics that converge around this relatively new space and which could open up new channels where fresh voices and minds will join established players in the field to solve one of the biggest healthcare challenges of this century.

For this event, IMI brought together European academics, representatives of multiple industry sectors (pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, digital, imaging), patient groups, clinicians, regulators, legal experts, ethicists and health economists to discuss how we could develop game-changing initiatives in this area.

More information

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