Strategic participation of BSRC Fleming in a EUR 38 million public-private European partnership for arthritis research

Vari - Athens, April 13, 2011 - BSRC Fleming participates in a EUR 38 million European investment project for research and innovation, funded by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and the European Union under the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) platform. The IMI is currently the largest public-private partnership in Europe in the field of biomedical research.

The consortium, called BeTheCure, consists of 34 institutions of high scientific and technological excellence, including pharmaceutical companies UCB, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, NovoNordisk and Merck Serono. These companies will invest about 50% of the total project budget, seeking to combine academic excellence with industrial innovation towards the development of new methods for early prediction, diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

BSRC Fleming coordinates a central work package (WP1 ‘Animal Studies’: Budget EUR 9 million, 2011-2016) that uses cutting-edge technologies for the development, characterisation and exploitation of animal models that mimic human RA. WP1 is structured around the development of standardized research infrastructures for commonly used RA models, as well as selected demonstration projects for the preclinical assessment of novel therapeutic approaches. Fleming is internationally recognized for its technological and scientific excellence in the development, design and use of such models for preclinical evaluation of novel therapeutics.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. George Kollias, Institute of Immunology, BSRC Fleming, Tel: +30 210 9656507, e-mail: g.kollias@fleming.gr