Partnership &
Collaborations
Public-Private Partnerships
We work with the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2), the world’s biggest public-private partnership for health, as co-leaders of the latest pain initiative.
The Pain Group of the IMI2 unites European pharmaceutical companies dedicated to better understand, treat and manage pain. The framework of the public-private partnership enables a portfolio of pain projects addressing a broad spectrum of relevant challenges together with the best skilled public consortia of expert academics, hospitals, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and patient groups.
The IMI is a public-private partnership between the EU and EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) companies and is working to improve health by speeding up the development of, and patient access to, the next generation of medicines, particularly in areas of unmet medical and social need.
Deciphering pain
Paving the way for safe, effective treatments
The first collaborative project with the IMI2 started in April 2017, with the aim of increasing our knowledge of pain targets and pathways to generate predictive research approaches for the discovery of disease-modifying analgesics. The Modelling Neuron-Glia Networks into a Drug Discovery Platform for Pain Efficacious Treatments (NGN-PET) project will, over the course of 3 years, investigate neuron-glia interactions by developing authentic cellular (co-culture) assays using neuronal and glial cell types derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).
Patient engagement in research and health system decision-making processes
PARADIGM: Patients Active in Research and Dialogues for an Improved Generation of Medicines
The public-private partnership PARADIGM started in March 2018 and aims to establish best practice for effective and meaningful engagement of patients in the life cycle of medicines for better health outcomes.
Improving the care of acute and chronic pain patients
Starting soon
We are currently planning a second pain project that seeks to improve the care of patients suffering from acute or chronic pain, which will start in 2018. We look forward to the ground-breaking results from these and other IMI2-supported pain projects in the years to come.
Creating a network of partnerships
Future developments
In addition, Grünenthal will join other IMI2 projects to establish networks of specialists starting in 2018 or 2019: the ‘European Screening Center Unique Library of Attractive Biology’ (ESCulab), and ‘Linking digital assessment of mobility to clinical endpoints to drive regulatory acceptance and clinical practice’.
Latest Updates
PainSpectrum – What, how, who?
Are you interested to learn more about how the PainSpectrum was developed and the reasoning behind it? Read our introductory article to the PainSpectrum here.
Discover morePsychosocial Factors in Profiling IBS Patients
Read our article on how relevant the neuro-visceral axis is for the expression of symptoms from which visceral pain conditions, like IBS, can originate.
Discover moreOmics Approach to Identify Pain Pathways
Read our article about the steps we have taken to generate an integrated disease pathway map for pain which contains the major pathophysiological components.
Discover moreMechanisms of Placebo & Nocebo Responses in Clinical Trials
View Prof. Ulrike Bingel's (University Hospital Essen, Germany) third and final PainSolve webinar in her Placebo Effect series.
Discover more