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Key organisations unite to improve benefit & risk assessments of vaccines ADVANCE project factsheet

26/11/2013

For immediate release
IMI/OUT/2013-04612

 - Goal of ADVANCE project is to help health professionals, regulatory agencies, public health institutions, vaccine manufacturers and the general public make more informed decisions on benefits and risks of marketed vaccines. It will do this by creating a framework and tools to rapidly deliver reliable data on vaccine benefits and risks.

  • ADVANCE is a unique collaboration between key players in sector, including European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), European Medicines Agency (EMA), national public health and regulatory bodies, vaccine manufacturers, SMEs, and academic institutions.


BRUSSELS, 26 November 2013 – Leading organisations have joined forces to launch a unique project that will pave the way for a pan-European framework for rapidly assessing and communicating the benefits and risks of vaccines. Such a framework would make it easier for regulators and public health authorities to make fast, more informed decisions regarding vaccination strategies, and help to maintain public confidence in immunisation, particularly when questions are raised about the safety of specific vaccines.

The 5-year, €10.7 million ADVANCE (‘Accelerated development of vaccine benefit-risk collaboration in Europe’) project is supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and brings together the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as vaccine manufacturers, national public health and regulatory bodies, academic experts, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). ADVANCE is co-coordinated by the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, the University of Basel / University Children’s Hospital Basel in Switzerland, GSK Vaccines (coordinating the vaccine manufacturers in the project) in Belgium, and Synapse Research Management Partners (Project Management) in Spain.

Vaccines undergo rigorous safety testing before regulatory approval. However, efforts to monitor the coverage, benefits and risks of vaccines after approval are rather fragmented. The goal of ADVANCE is to review, develop and test methods, data sources and procedures for an efficient and sustainable pan-European framework that can rapidly deliver robust, quantitative data for the assessment of the benefits and risks of marketed vaccines.

The key to the project’s success lies in the fact that it brings together representatives of all stakeholders, including public health bodies, regulatory agencies, health ministries, vaccine manufacturers, healthcare providers, and of course the general public.

Michel Goldman, IMI Executive Director explained: Collaboration between these diverse groups is very sensitive. By bringing them together around the neutral platform offered by IMI, ADVANCE is in a unique position to pave the way for a framework that will make it easier to rapidly assess the benefits and risks of vaccines. This would help maintain public confidence in immunisation as a successful and effective public health tool to control infectious diseases.’

#ENDS#


Notes to editors

More information on ADVANCE, including full list of partners – link

ADVANCE budget:

IMI funding: € 5.0 million
EFPIA in kind: € 5.0 million (of which EFPIA non-EU contribution: € 0.5 million)
Other: € 0.7 million
Total budget: € 10.7 million


Press contact:

Catherine Brett – External Relations Manager
Tel: +32 2 541 8214 -  Mobile: +32 484 896227  -  E-mail: catherine.brett@imi.europa.eu


About IMI

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is the world’s largest public-private partnership in health. IMI is improving the environment for pharmaceutical innovation in Europe by engaging and supporting networks of industrial and academic experts in collaborative research projects. The European Union contributes €1 billion to the IMI research programme, and this is matched by in kind contributions worth at least another €1 billion from the member companies of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

The Innovative Medicines Initiative currently supports 42 projects, many of which are already producing impressive results. The projects are all working to address the biggest challenges in drug development, with the goal of accelerating the development of safer and more effective treatments for patients.

More info on IMI: www.imi.europa.eu

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