IHI’s new funding round to include topics on CVD and arthritis

The initiative’s proposals aim to tackle current challenges in health research and innovation

The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) has launched a new call for proposals, which include topics on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and arthritis, as part of the total budget worth €96.5m to tackle challenges in health research and innovation.

As part of the total budget, Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme, has contributed €47.6m, while an additional €40.9m comes from the IHI’s industry members, as well as €8.1m from IHI contributing partners.

Dr Niklas Blomberg, executive director, IHI, commented: “This call for proposals is an excellent opportunity to be part of ambitious projects tackling major challenges in health research and innovation.”

The IHI aims to identify and create models, interventions and best practices to improve the management of CVD in Europe’s cities, covering healthcare delivery, individual lifestyle changes and the living environment. It will include five pilot studies in cities to generate evidence for wider use of the models.

Accounting for 18 million deaths worldwide every year, CVD is the leading cause of global mortality, which is heightened in areas with high pollution rates, including urban areas in the EU.

As studies have already suggested that osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease, could have several subgroups, the IHI aims to use a big data approach to identify them in patients who may benefit from different treatment approaches, while also paving the way for regulatory recognition of measures that predict the course of the disease and assess responses to treatments.

Regulatory sandboxes allow innovators and regulators to collaborate and explore the best way to regulate a new technology to protect end users.

The IHI plans to scan healthcare innovations for potential candidates for regulatory sandboxes and analyse how they can accelerate science and health technology innovations while delivering recommendations on how regulatory sandboxes should be implemented and used to inform innovations, regulators and other decision-makers.

Lastly, the initiative aims to develop a framework and recommendations for using multiple types of patient-centred information alongside clinical studies to ensure that therapies address patients’ needs.