Key Takeaways
Public–private partnerships have become a cornerstone of Europe’s biomedical innovation strategy, enabling governments, industry, and academia to coordinate research investments and accelerate drug development.
The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and its successor, the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), demonstrate how large-scale EU–industry collaboration can support hundreds of research projects and generate shared tools, data resources, and scientific insights.
Research infrastructures such as EATRIS and collaborative networks like EIT Health help bridge the gap between discovery science and clinical application by connecting laboratories, companies, and healthcare providers across Europe.
Shared platforms including the European Lead Factory, EBiSC stem cell bank, and DARWIN EU real-world data network expand access to discovery tools, biological resources, and regulatory evidence generation.
By coordinating funding, infrastructure, and expertise across multiple countries and sectors, Europe’s partnership ecosystem provides a model for advancing translational research and improving healthcare innovation.
Introduction — Europe’s Collaborative Innovation Model
Biomedical innovation has grown increasingly complex over the past several decades. Advances in molecular biology, data science, and clinical research have expanded the scientific possibilities for drug discovery and development, but they have also increased the resources, expertise, and infrastructure required to translate discoveries into new therapies. No single organization — academic institution, biotechnology company, or government agency — possesses all the capabilities needed to move innovations efficiently from early discovery to clinical and regulatory application. As a result, cross-sector collaboration among academic researchers, industry partners, regulators, and public funding bodies has become a defining feature of modern biomedical research.
In Europe, policymakers and industry leaders have responded to this challenge by deliberately institutionalizing collaboration through large public–private partnership frameworks. These initiatives aim to align public research investments with private-sector expertise and resources, enabling participants to pursue ambitious scientific goals that would be difficult for individual organizations to achieve independently. Such partnerships help coordinate funding across institutions and countries, reduce fragmentation within the research ecosystem, and support the development of shared platforms and infrastructure that facilitate translational medicine.
At the European Union level, this collaborative approach has been formalized through the creation of European Partnerships under the Horizon Europe research and innovation framework. These partnerships bring together public and private stakeholders to address major societal challenges through coordinated research programs and shared innovation initiatives. By pooling resources and expertise, these partnerships seek to improve the efficiency and impact of publicly funded research while strengthening Europe’s competitiveness in emerging areas of science and technology.
One of the most prominent examples in the life sciences is the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), launched in 2008 as a joint undertaking between the European Union and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).1 With a total budget of approximately €5 billion contributed jointly by the EU and the pharmaceutical industry, IMI became the largest public–private partnership in health globally.2 Across two successive programs, the initiative supported nearly 200 collaborative research projects addressing key challenges in drug discovery, clinical development, and translational science.3
Through initiatives like the IMI and the broader Horizon Europe partnership framework, Europe has constructed a collaborative innovation ecosystem designed to bring together diverse stakeholders, coordinate investments, and accelerate the translation of biomedical discoveries into tangible health benefits.
From the IMI to the IHI — The Evolution of Europe’s Flagship Health PPP
The IMI is among the most ambitious attempts to reshape how biomedical innovation is organized across Europe. Drug development had become increasingly expensive and complex, and Europe’s research landscape spanning dozens of national funding systems and institutional silos often fragmented efforts that might otherwise have benefited from coordination. The IMI introduced a new model designed to align public research investment with industry expertise through structured collaboration.
The program unfolded through two successive phases. The first phase, IMI1, operated under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), while IMI2 was funded through the Horizon 2020 research framework.2 Across these two programs, the IMI supported nearly 200 collaborative research projects involving academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, regulators, and patient organizations.3 These projects tackled a wide range of scientific and technological challenges related to drug discovery and development.
Beyond funding individual research initiatives, the IMI played a role in building shared scientific infrastructure and collaborative networks. Projects frequently focused on developing platforms, data resources, and research tools that could support the broader biomedical ecosystem. These efforts included the creation of shared research platforms, the establishment of clinical and translational research networks, and the development of new methods and analytical tools intended to improve drug development processes. The collaborative structure of IMI projects encouraged participants to pool expertise and resources while addressing challenges that extended beyond the capabilities of any single institution.
The scale of activity generated by IMI reflects the breadth of its collaborative model. By the time of its 2022 consolidated annual activity report, research conducted through IMI projects had produced nearly 10,000 scientific publications, highlighting the extensive scientific output generated by these partnerships.4 Such output underscores how coordinated research programs can stimulate knowledge generation while also advancing practical tools and resources for drug development.
At the end of 2021, the IMI framework transitioned into a new program, the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), marking the next stage in Europe’s evolving partnership model.3 While the IMI focused primarily on collaboration between the European Union and pharmaceutical companies, the IHI broadened the partnership structure to incorporate a wider life science ecosystem that includes biotechnology firms, medical technology companies, and other healthcare stakeholders.
Operating under the Horizon Europe framework, the IHI carries a budget of approximately €2.4 billion jointly funded by the European Union and industry partners.3 Its mission centers on translating health research and innovation into tangible benefits for patients and society. In practice, this means supporting collaborative projects that address emerging challenges in healthcare while continuing to strengthen Europe’s capacity for coordinated research and innovation.
The transition from the IMI to the IHI reflects the dynamic nature of Europe’s public–private partnership strategy. As scientific technologies evolve and the healthcare landscape becomes more interconnected, these partnerships have adapted to incorporate new stakeholders and broader innovation goals while maintaining their core objective of accelerating biomedical progress through collaboration.
Building Translational Infrastructure — Networks That Bridge Discovery and Application
Scientific discovery alone rarely leads directly to new therapies. The path from early research to clinical application involves a series of complex steps, including target validation, preclinical development, biomarker identification, clinical trial design, and regulatory evaluation. In many research systems, these stages are distributed across different institutions, disciplines, and funding mechanisms. As a result, promising discoveries may stall during translation not because of a lack of scientific insight but because the infrastructure needed to move them forward is fragmented.
European research policy has increasingly recognized this gap between discovery and application. In response, the European Union and its member states have invested in shared research infrastructures designed to support translational medicine. These infrastructures aim to provide researchers with access to specialized capabilities, technical expertise, and collaborative networks that help move scientific findings toward clinical development.
One example of this approach is EATRIS, the European infrastructure for translational medicine. Established as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), EATRIS brings together research institutions across multiple European countries to support the translation of biomedical discoveries into medical applications.5 The consortium structure allows participating institutions to coordinate resources while maintaining national research programs, creating a distributed infrastructure that connects laboratories, clinical research facilities, and technology platforms.
EATRIS currently links research organizations across 14 countries, forming a network that provides access to high-end facilities and specialized translational resources. These resources include capabilities relevant to multiple stages of therapeutic development, such as advanced preclinical models, biomarker discovery platforms, and clinical research expertise. By coordinating access to these resources, the infrastructure helps investigators design and execute programs that might otherwise exceed the capabilities of individual institutions.
Translational medicine often requires collaboration among scientists, clinicians, regulatory specialists, and technology experts. EATRIS facilitates these connections by linking researchers with professionals experienced in areas such as regulatory science, clinical trial design, and therapeutic development. This integrated support structure helps ensure that promising discoveries are evaluated with a clear pathway toward clinical application.
Expanding the Innovation Network — EIT Health and Collaborative Ecosystems
Alongside large-scale public–private partnerships and research infrastructures, Europe has also invested in building innovation communities designed to connect diverse actors across the healthcare ecosystem. These networks emphasize collaboration among academic researchers, entrepreneurs, established companies, healthcare providers, and educators. By linking these groups through shared programs and initiatives, such communities aim to accelerate the development and adoption of new health technologies.
One of the most prominent examples of this approach is EIT Health. Established in 2015 as a Knowledge and Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the organization focuses on fostering collaboration across Europe’s health innovation landscape.6 Knowledge and Innovation Communities operate as long-term partnerships intended to integrate education, research, and business activity in areas of strategic importance. In the health sector, this model has been used to support the development of new technologies, the formation of startup companies, and the translation of research discoveries into practical healthcare solutions.
EIT Health describes itself as a network of health innovators backed by the European Union.6 Its structure reflects the belief that innovation in healthcare increasingly depends on cooperation among organizations with different expertise and perspectives. The network currently connects more than 100 partner institutions drawn from across Europe’s health and life sciences sectors.6 These partners include pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities, research institutes, hospitals, and healthcare providers.
By bringing these organizations together within a coordinated framework, EIT Health supports a range of collaborative activities. Research partnerships enable investigators from multiple institutions to pursue shared scientific objectives, while entrepreneurship initiatives help emerging companies develop technologies and navigate the path toward commercialization. Educational programs provide training opportunities for students, researchers, and healthcare professionals working at the intersection of science, medicine, and innovation.
The integration of these activities reflects a broader effort to strengthen Europe’s capacity for health innovation. Rather than focusing solely on research funding, networks such as EIT Health emphasize the importance of connecting ideas, expertise, and resources across sectors. Through these connections, the organization helps create pathways through which scientific discoveries can evolve into new technologies, new companies, and ultimately improved healthcare solutions.
Coordinating Clinical and Translational Research — The ERA4Health Partnership
While large public–private partnerships and innovation networks help drive collaboration across sectors, another challenge in the European research landscape is coordinating health research investments across national funding systems. Europe’s scientific strength derives in part from the diversity of its national research programs, but this diversity can also create fragmentation when funding priorities and research initiatives develop independently across countries. Partnerships that align national funding agencies therefore play an important role in strengthening the coherence and impact of European biomedical research.
The ERA4Health partnership represents one effort to address this challenge. Designed to coordinate health research funding across Europe, ERA4Health brings together a wide range of public funding bodies and research organizations with the goal of supporting collaborative, high-impact translational research.7 By linking these institutions within a common framework, the partnership seeks to facilitate cross-border collaboration while helping ensure that national investments contribute to shared research priorities.
The partnership currently involves 33 partners and 27 funding organizations drawn from 22 countries.7 This structure allows participating agencies to coordinate funding calls and research initiatives in areas of shared importance. Rather than operating as a single centralized funding body, ERA4Health provides mechanisms through which national agencies can jointly support research projects that address pressing health challenges.
A key focus of ERA4Health is the advancement of translational research with clear public health relevance. Its objectives include supporting research across the full spectrum of healthcare innovation, from disease prevention and diagnosis to the development of new treatments. The partnership also seeks to improve the use of existing health technologies in clinical practice and strengthen the capacity for investigator-initiated clinical studies conducted at a European scale. These goals reflect the growing recognition that coordinated clinical and translational research infrastructure is essential for transforming scientific discoveries into effective healthcare interventions.
Shared Platforms for Drug Discovery — The European Lead Factory
Early-stage drug discovery presents a distinct set of challenges for both academic researchers and emerging biotechnology companies. Identifying promising lead compounds typically requires access to extensive chemical libraries, specialized screening technologies, and the expertise needed to interpret large volumes of experimental data. These resources are often concentrated within large pharmaceutical companies, making it difficult for smaller organizations or academic laboratories to pursue early discovery programs independently. Collaborative infrastructure initiatives have emerged as one way to broaden access to these capabilities.
The European Lead Factory (ELF) represents a notable example of this model. Established in 2013, the initiative was designed to accelerate the lengthy and resource-intensive process of drug discovery by providing shared access to compound libraries and high-throughput screening technologies.8 The project brought together seven major pharmaceutical companies that agreed to pool portions of their proprietary compound collections. These resources were then made available to academic researchers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe, enabling investigators to explore potential drug targets using tools that would otherwise remain largely confined to industry laboratories.
The scale of the ELF infrastructure reflects the collaborative ambition of the project. With a five-year budget of approximately €196 million, the initiative combined public funding with industry contributions to create a discovery platform capable of supporting a wide range of research programs.8 At the center of this platform is a compound library containing more than 500,000 molecules available for screening. This resource includes roughly 300,000 compounds contributed by participating pharmaceutical companies and approximately 190,000 additional compounds assembled through the Public Compound Collection, which expanded the chemical diversity available for discovery efforts.9
Researchers participating in the program can access advanced screening technologies through the European Screening Centre, which provides ultra-high-throughput screening and high-content screening capabilities.9 These technologies allow scientists to test large numbers of compounds rapidly against biological targets, generating data that can help identify promising candidates for further development.
Shared Biological Resources — The European Bank for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Beyond research funding and collaborative networks, public–private partnerships have also supported the creation of shared biological resources that enable more consistent and reproducible biomedical research. Access to standardized biological materials is particularly important in areas such as disease modeling and drug discovery, where variability in experimental systems can limit the reliability and comparability of research findings. Centralized repositories can address this challenge by providing well-characterized materials and associated data to researchers across institutions.
The European Bank for induced pluripotent Stem Cells (EBiSC) represents one such initiative. EBiSC serves as a centralized repository of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines designed to support both academic research and industrial drug development.10 The organization describes itself as a not-for-profit iPSC bank that provides access to high-quality stem cell lines and derived products for investigators working in a range of biomedical fields. These materials allow researchers to study disease mechanisms, test potential therapies, and develop experimental models using standardized cellular resources.
The development of the EBiSC reflects the collaborative structure of Europe’s biomedical research ecosystem. The initiative was funded through two successive rounds of the Innovative Medicines Initiative program, combining financial support from the European Union with in-kind contributions from EFPIA member companies.10 This funding structure enabled the creation of infrastructure capable of supporting large-scale distribution and long-term maintenance of stem cell resources.
The EBiSC provides researchers with access to its resources through an online catalogue that lists available cell lines and associated data. The platform allows investigators to identify suitable materials using a range of search criteria, including disease type, donor characteristics, specific genes, and the methods used to generate the iPSC lines. Once selected, cell lines can be distributed to laboratories worldwide through the bank’s logistics and distribution infrastructure.
In addition to providing physical biological materials, the initiative also offers supporting documentation, training materials, and guidance on the use of iPSC technologies. These resources help researchers implement standardized experimental approaches while improving the reproducibility of stem cell–based studies.
Data-Driven Regulation — The DARWIN EU Real-World Evidence Network
As biomedical innovation increasingly relies on large-scale data, collaborative infrastructure has also begun to reshape regulatory science. Regulators and health authorities must evaluate therapies using evidence that reflects not only controlled clinical trials but also how medicines perform in real-world clinical practice. Generating this type of evidence requires access to diverse healthcare data sets and analytical systems capable of working across national healthcare systems while respecting data governance requirements.
The Data Analysis and Real World Interrogation Network (DARWIN EU) represents one of Europe’s efforts to build this type of capability. DARWIN EU is a network designed to generate real-world evidence using healthcare data from across Europe.11 By connecting multiple data partners and research institutions, the initiative aims to support regulatory decision-making throughout the life cycle of medicinal products.
The evidence generated through DARWIN EU is intended to inform the work of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) as well as national competent authorities responsible for medicines regulation within EU member states. Through coordinated studies, the network can provide insights into patterns of disease, characteristics of patient populations, and the real-world use and performance of medicines in clinical settings. These analyses help regulators better understand how therapies are used outside controlled clinical trials and how outcomes may vary across different patient populations.
To support this work while protecting sensitive health information, DARWIN EU operates using a federated data model. In this approach, participating data partners retain control of their own datasets. Instead of transferring patient-level data to a central repository, study code is distributed to the participating institutions, where analyses are conducted locally.11 The partners then return aggregated results to a coordination center, which compiles and interprets the findings. This model enables large-scale analysis while maintaining compliance with national and European data protection frameworks.
Since its launch, the network has begun to produce a growing body of evidence to support regulatory decision-making. By 2022, DARWIN EU had delivered approximately 40 studies addressing questions relevant to medicines evaluation and regulatory oversight.11 These analyses demonstrate the potential for coordinated data networks to provide regulators with timely and robust insights drawn from real-world healthcare systems.
Conclusion — A Collaborative Model for Biomedical Innovation
Over the past two decades, Europe has steadily developed a collaborative framework for biomedical innovation that relies on coordinated partnerships among public institutions, industry, academic researchers, and healthcare organizations. Rather than treating research funding, infrastructure development, and translational science as separate domains, European policymakers have increasingly approached them as interconnected components of a broader innovation ecosystem. Public–private partnerships have become central mechanisms for aligning these efforts and ensuring that scientific advances can move more efficiently toward practical applications in medicine.
Flagship initiatives such as the IMI and its successor the IHI illustrate the scale at which this collaborative model operates. By linking European Union research funding with industry expertise and resources, these programs have supported hundreds of collaborative research projects addressing challenges in drug discovery, clinical development, and translational science. In doing so, they have helped establish shared platforms, data resources, and research networks that extend well beyond the individual projects themselves.
At the same time, complementary infrastructures and innovation communities have broadened the scope of collaboration across the European research landscape. Translational infrastructure networks, such as EATRIS, provide specialized facilities and expertise that help bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and clinical application. Innovation communities like EIT Health connect universities, companies, and healthcare providers to support entrepreneurship and technology development. Coordinated funding partnerships like ERA4Health align national research investments across multiple countries to support collaborative translational and clinical research.
Shared platforms and resources further reinforce this ecosystem. Initiatives such as the European Lead Factory expand access to compound libraries and screening technologies for early drug discovery, while biological resource platforms like the European Bank for induced pluripotent Stem Cells provide standardized materials that enable reproducible research and drug development efforts. Data infrastructures such as DARWIN EU extend collaborative approaches into regulatory science by enabling coordinated analysis of real-world healthcare data to inform medicines evaluation.
These initiatives demonstrate how coordinated investment, shared infrastructure, and cross-sector collaboration can strengthen the pathways that connect discovery science to healthcare innovation. As biomedical research becomes increasingly complex and interdisciplinary, Europe’s network of public–private partnerships offers a model for building innovation infrastructure at continental scale—one in which public institutions and private industry jointly support the translation of scientific discoveries into clinical and societal benefit.
References
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3. “Innovative Health Initiative.” Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
4. “Consolidated annual activity report 2022.” Innovative Health Initiative. 2022.
5. “European Infrastructure for Translational Medicine.” Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
6. “Who We Are.” EIT Health. Accessed 10 Mar. 2026. https://eithealth.eu/who-we-are/
7. “ERA4Health Partnership.” Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
8. “Results, Impact, and Outlook of the European Lead Factory.” European Lead Factory. Jan. 2019.
9. “The European Lead Factory.” Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
10. “EBiSC.” Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
11. “DARWIN EU.” Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
