On the 26^th of July the call “Demonstration pilots for implementation of personalised medicine in healthcare” (H2020-SC1-BHC-2018-2020) will be opened.

As part of the Work Programme Health, demographic change and wellbeing, the call is aimed at moving towards the effective integration of personalised medicine approaches into healthcare services and systems to the benefit of patients and citizens. Personalised medicine will generate and translate knowledge on disease etiology and technological innovation into personalised health and care solutions. Moreover, as a priority of the Work Programme, it will contribute to establish Europe as a global leader in personalised medicine research; to support the personalised medicine science base through a coordinated approach to research and to provide evidence to policy makers of the benefit of personalized medicine.

The call in details

Personalised medicine has the potential to respond to the increasing burden of co–morbidities and thus enhance the sustainability of healthcare systems. With the increasing number of scientific approaches available, it is crucial to demonstrate the benefit of large scale deployment of personalised medicine to citizens and healthcare systems.

The scope of the pilot projects is to demonstrate the benefit for individuals as well as the implementability and the economic viability of personalised medicine approaches in real life healthcare settings. The pilots should be tailored to the needs of citizens, making use of a wide variety of data and proposing prediction, prevention or treatment solutions, focusing on diseases with high burden to society (taking to account of sex/gender differences) and including multi–morbidity conditions if relevant.

The use of big data approaches and high performance computing is encouraged. Applicants should ensure coordination with national, regional or local authorities engaging in healthcare environments and should aim at linking different institutions (hospitals, other healthcare facilities, public health authorities, payers etc.). The pilot projects should engage partners in regions or cities having adopted or that are in advanced planning for introducing PM approaches. Patient representatives as well as partners from countries that are in the process of upgrading their healthcare systems should be involved, ensuring a wide European dimension.

Applicants should address the health economic, ethical, legal and societal aspects of the proposed action. Taking into account the advances already achieved for PM approaches, Projects with primary focus on cancer and rare diseases are excluded from the scope of this topic.

The project is expected to provide the following impact:

• Evidence for a Personalised Medicine–based model of care that can be used as a basis for the delivery of new ways of care organisation.
• Demonstration of the viability and feasibility of Personalised Medicine approaches in real–life settings and at a large scale, exemplifying potential for savings in overall healthcare costs.
• Widening of Personalised Medicine approaches to include diseases other than cancer and rare diseases.
• Linking of different actors for healthcare, economy, lifestyle, healthy living and regulation, making use of the multitude of data available.

A contribution from the EU of between EUR 18 and EUR 20 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. As innovation action (IA) the funding rate 70% of eligible costs (except for non–profit legal entities, where a rate of 100% applies).

The planned opening is on 26 July. The deadlines for submitting proposals are:

2 October 2018 (first stage)

16 April 2019 (second stage)

Further information and all official documents of this Call for proposals can be found on the Participant Portal.