Dear ETPN members, dear colleagues from the European Nanomedicine community, we are delighted to share that the ETPN has been invited to join the ERA4Health’s Strategic Advisory Board. This engagement paves the way for new significant advancements and funding for Nanomedicine research across Europe. Accordingly, we’re thrilled to announce an upcoming ERA4Health call for proposals in Nanomedicine, in line with its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, marking a new exciting era for our community. Together, let’s continue to shape the future of Nanomedicine and emerging health technologies in Europe by creating impactful international collaborations and driving innovation for better patient outcomes

ETPN Joins ERA4Health’s Strategic Advisory Board

The European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine (ETPN) is thrilled to announce its participation in the Strategic Advisory Board (StAB) of the ERA4Health Partnership. Prof. Raymond Schiffelers, our Chairman, and Dr. Alexandre Ceccaldi, General Secretary, will represent the ETPN and provide strategic guidance to this pivotal body.

ABout ERA4Health Partnership: “Fostering a European Research Area for Health Research”.

The ERA4Health is a 7-year partnership co-funded under the Horizon Europe Program, the EU’s key funding program for research and innovation, facilitated by the European Commission. The EU-funded ERA4Health Partnership brings the opportunity to increase European transnational collaborative research funding by creating a funding body for joint programming in priority areas addressing European public health needs. The ERA4Health objectives are to:

• Support relevant medical research including clinical fields and intervention areas (prevention, diagnosis, treatment).
• Improve the utilisation of existing health technologies in clinical practice.
• Build capacity, in particular in conducting Investigator Initiated Clinical Studies at EU scale.
• Implement and advance the practice of responsible research and innovation (RRI) across the breadth of the programme.

ERA4Health will be implemented in 2 phases:

• Phase 1:Joint calls focused on nutrition and lifestyle-related diseases, cardiovascular diseases and Nanomedicine are implemented. Four calls are expected to be launched during the first two years of the partnership). The first two, Cardinnov and HealthEquity were launched in 2022 and have been closed for submission. The results for these are to be expected in the fall of 2023. The next two calls are currently being worked on and are expected to be launched in 2024.
• Phase 2. Additional joint calls focused on multinational investigator initiated clinical studies for other priority areas are expected to be launched in accordance with the decision of the Health Programme Committee and the European Commission. Updates on this matter will follow as soon as possible.

About the ERA4Health Strategic Advisory Board

The Strategic Advisory Board (StAB) is the main body for strategic advice toward ERA4Health. The StAB will be composed of representatives from societies and organizations in the European Research Area (ERA) and beyond. The inaugural StAB meeting marked the kick-off of our collaboration with other key organizations in the health research and innovation sector, including the Alliance Biomed, the European Heart Network (EHN), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the European University Hospital Alliance (EUHA), the European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI), EuroHealthNet, the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS), and the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA).

Announced: Upcoming ERA4Health Call for proposals in Nanomedicine

In a significant development for the European Nanomedicine community, ERA4Health is set to launch a dedicated call for proposals in Nanomedicine for the years 2023-2024. This presents a promising new opportunity for researchers, technology developers, and most importantly, patients to create international collaborations of excellence, and develop together new solutions coming from the application, nanoscience, nanomaterials and nanotechnologies to tackle unmet clinical needs in Europe.

The Legacy of EuroNanoMed in ERA4Health

ERA4Health, in the nanomedicine field, can build on the experience of the previous EuroNanoMed (ENM I – III) programs that launched 12 calls for proposals on Nanomedicine from 2009 to 2021 with a budget of about €105 million. Now within ERA4Health, Nanomedicine stands as a priority research area, underscoring its crucial role in addressing European public health needs, with an even clearer focus on tangible impact for patients.

ERA4Health call on Nanomedicine : making the voice of ETPN members heard

The Preparatory Workshop for the ERA4Health call for Nanomedicine was held online on July 3, 2023. Cristina Nieto Garcia (MCNG), the coordinator of ERA4health, and Martine Batoux (ANR), the representative of the future call secretariat and ERA4health Pillar 2 Leader, provided insightful presentations. Alexandre Ceccaldi, representing the Strategic Advisory Board of ERA4health and ETPN, chaired the interactive discussion, fostering an engaging dialogue on the future of nanomedicine with a diverse panel of stakeholders, It has also been the basis of synergies and lively discussions with the other stakeholders participating in this workshop, all of them showing a collaborative spirit, with the aim to contribute in the shaping of a useful call, for the Nanomedicine community as for the patients.

This workshop was preceded by a successful consultation process among ETPN member institutions. They had the opportunity to analyze, comment on, and make suggestions to the draft call text, which helped us bring a unified and influential voice to the discussion. By integrating their expertise and aligning their priorities, we aim to ensure our ETPN community’s valuable contribution to shaping the call for nanomedicine proposals.

Advancing HealthTech Together, for Improved Patient Outcomes

The strength of ETPN lies in our ability to combine strategic thinking, community mobilization to respond to project calls from academia to industry, and fostering the translation of the best innovations from these projects into clinical practice.

In particular, the HealthTech TAB (Translation Advisory Board) is  a unique industry mentoring service designed and run by the ETPN for more than 7 years, which has experience in fostering Nanomedicine and other HealthTech translation to the market.  We are convinced that this unique service could be of great support to help the ERA4Health upcoming projects who are positioned for translational research.

More globally, we ETPN truly believe in the power of partnership and common purpose among diverse stakeholders in Europe. We foresee the ERA4Health program to be a valuable complement to the existing research, innovation, and development opportunities under Horizon Europe. As the ERA4Health Nanomedicine call nears, we stand ready to mobilize our community, to enhance the chances of nanomedicine bringing unique value “where nanomedicine can bring something unique!“, and ultimately to make a significant difference for patients across Europe. Our active engagement in the StAB has already allowed us to contribute to ERA4Health’s annual work plan for 2023, going beyond the nanomedicine sphere by sharing our learnings and expertise for the greater benefit of Healthtech in the EU.

DISCLAIMER/ Official Updates on ERA4Health

For official updates on the upcoming Nanomedicine call and other ERA4Health-related information, we recommend turning solely to the communications from ERA4Health on their official website here.