How public-private partnerships (PPP) help driving medical research
It started with Pasteur: How Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Help Driving Medical Innovation
In July 1885, a nine-year-old boy named Joseph Meister was taken by his desperate mother on the long way from Alsace to Paris. Seeing a scientist named Louis Pasteur, who had conducted research on rabies and other diseases, was their last hope. The boy had been bitten multiple times by a rabid dog – a certain death sentence at that time. A doctor by the name of Jacques Grancher convinced Pasteur to take the risk and attempt the impossible. Every day for ten days, Joseph received multiple doses of the vaccine. The rest, as they say, is history: He survived, paving the way for modern immunology that should save countless lives in the decades to come.
The success story of the rabies vaccine had not only a profound impact on public health, but also remains one of the most powerful examples for the importance of PPP in medical research. Louis Pasteur’s research on rabies and other diseases was supported by both public and private funding – so was the establishment of the Pasteur Institute, which is still a leading center for medical research and vaccine development today.
When collaboration becomes a NECESSITY
Fast forward 140 years, and public-private partnerships are still a force in advancing research and innovation in Europe and beyond. With partners like EFPIA, EuropaBio, and Vaccines Europe, the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) - formerly Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) - has been driving transformative impact across healthcare for more than 15 years, accelerating the development of breakthrough therapies for the benefit of the patients.
One of the more than 20 IHI and IMI projects BMS is involved in is NECESSITY *. The initiative focuses on Sjögren’s disease – a rare systemic autoimmune condition that can affect the entire body and has a massive impact on quality of life, manifesting itself not only with excessive dryness of eyes and mouth, but also fatigue, chronic pain, arthritis, neuropathies and even lymphomas.
The aim of NECESSITY, where Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) is involved in various work packages and the evidence task force, is to identify sensitive clinical endpoints that could be used in clinical trials to determine whether a new treatment works or not. Identifying biomarkers that could be used to identify specific subgroups of patients with different types of Sjögren’s is also a goal of the project. As part of this PPP, an innovative clinical trial is currently underway in eight countries. and intended to validate both the newly defined endpoints and patient subgroups.
“Our ongoing close involvement with NECESSITY enables BMS to actively contribute to the development of novel treatments to address true medical needs for Sjögren’s disease,” says Nikolay Delev, Executive Medical Director and Immunology Clinical Development Team Lead at BMS. “In addition, we expect many of the methodologies, learnings and outcomes from NECESSITY to be useful for other autoimmune diseases as well. Experiencing the productive exchange between diverse stakeholders in this project has been truly encouraging. Collaboration is indeed a necessity if we want to advance breakthrough science!”
Earlier this year, representatives from the IMI NECESSITY* project came together at the BMS Boudry Collaboration Hub in Western Switzerland to share insights and discuss next steps in their research.
*NECESSITY stands for ‘NEw Clinical Endpoints in primary Sjögren’s Syndrome: an Interventional Trial based on stratifYing patients’.