Opportunities for vaccine research in Europe

Since 1984, the European Union (EU) has been funding fundamental, applied or clinical research in all life science disciplines through its multiannual framework programmes for research and technological development (FP). The funding opportunities are fostered by different instruments (Table 1) and range from cooperative projects involving researchers from multiple countries, disciplines and types of organizations (academic, industry, regulators, patients’ organizations, etc.) to individual research actions, infrastructure development and training activities. It also includes dedicated instruments for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) as well as public-public and public-private partnerships. In this paper, we focus on the support to the vaccine and immunotherapy research performed during the 7th Framework Program (FP7, 2007–2013) and discuss the current and future opportunities of the new EU funding program for research and innovation, Horizon 2020 (2014–2020). More than €148 million was allocated to 73 FP7 immunotherapy projects. Nineteen of those were collaborative (half of them included at least one clinical trial), amounting to €117 million. The remaining €31 million include individual grants from the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSC) training actions. The type of diseases targeted ranged from cancer, diabetes or allergies, to rare diseases. Typically, the projects developed new advanced technologies such as refined vectors for the production of genetically engineered cells, DNA and RNA-based vaccines, or new types of antibodies. Illustrative examples include the projects ATTACK (Adoptive engineered T-cell trials to achieve cancer killing) and Cell-PID (Advanced cellbased therapies for the treatment of primary immunodeficiency). The project ADITEC (Advanced Immunization Technologies) is a significant example of a FP7 collaborative project in the vaccine field. This 5-years high impact project, receiving a €30 million EU contribution, integrates all the required expertise in immunization research (adjuvants, vectors, antigens, delivery systems, animal models, clinical trials) to study human immune responses under conditions of health and disease. ADITEC gathers 43 partners (28 academic, 13 SMEs and 2 pharmaceutical companies) from 13 different countries including the USA. After only 3 years, 9 clinical trials have been conducted or are on-going, and the project has so far delivered more than 110 peer reviewed publications (more than 70 in 2014). ADITEC is part of a large portfolio of FP7 research projects developing vaccines for infectious diseases. Overall in FP7 investments in vaccine research and development reached on average €40 million per year, with a total EU contribution of more than €317 million for the period. The majority of the funds (€234 million) was allocated to 43 collaborative projects (a third of which were performing clinical trials) dealing with antimicrobial resistance (n D 5, €25.5 million), emerging epidemics (n D 10, €41.5 million), povertyrelated diseases (malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, n D 16, €82.7 million), neglected infectious diseases (n D 9, €42.4 million) and cross-infectious diseases combining more than one of the former categories (n D 3, €42.2 million). A sector analysis of the participants revealed that higher education, research organizations and private for-profit organizations are highly represented in this field (Fig. 1A)