Science Foundation Ireland is committed to funding excellent science that will deliver strongly on impact, thus realising significant benefits for the Irish economy and Irish society. Forming partnerships with key stakeholders is a major goal to ensuring excellent science is driven into the market and society.

Pfizer focuses R&D on core areas where the company is best positioned to bring unique, needed therapies to patients. Key to this approach is collaborating in new and dynamic ways with other innovators across the health landscape including academic scientists, patient foundations, governments and other biopharmaceutical companies.

Arising from the strong focus of both Pfizer and SFI on adopting partnership approaches to translate scientific discoveries into new medicines, the SFI-Pfizer Biotherapeutics Innovation Award Programme (BIAP) was established. Under the terms of this unique collaboration, successful applicants with novel biological targets or pathways will gain access to Pfizer's drug discovery platforms and expertise in addition to accessing appropriate tools and molecules. The specific purpose of each collaborative project will be to identify potential biopharmaceutical candidates (therapeutic and/or preventative) directed at novel disease targets or pathways of interest which are suitable to modulation by a biologic or antibody-drug conjugate. Pfizer scientists will work in collaboration with academic teams to blend the research expertise of academics in target biology with Pfizer’s developmental expertise and resources with the goal of validating a potential drug candidate that can advance into clinical testing and potentially bring truly differentiated medicines to patients in need. In this way, this partnership has potential for delivering significant economic and societal impact.

Objectives of BIAP 2016

• Create new collaborations between Pfizer and academics through an open innovation model that deploys Pfizer’s world-leading biotherapeutic R&D resources to identify potential new therapeutics
• Deliver significant economic and societal impact through acceleration of the progress of research and drug development with the potential to make beneficial new medicines to treat diseases of high unmet medical need
• Support enhanced training of researchers in areas of importance to industry
• Maximise the state investment in research through leveraging of non-exchequer funding

Funding

Duration: 3 years

Award size: €400,000 in direct costs

Remit

Proposals are sought for research projects that aim to develop biotherapeutic drug candidates directed against novel targets/pathways in the areas of

• Immunology and Inflammation
• Oncology
• Neuroscience
• Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases
• Rare Diseases

The full list of Pfizer areas of interest is available here.

Key dates

Webinar:                                                                 19th July 2016, 15:00-16:00, Dublin Local Time

Deadline for pre-proposal submission:                  15th September 2016, 13.00 Dublin Local Time

Deadline for full proposal submission:                   20th January 2017, 13.00 Dublin Local Time

Review Process

An outline of the SFI-Pfizer Biotherapeutics Innovation Award Programme 2016 review process can be found here.

Downloads

Full details on the proposal and submission requirements may be found in the proposal call. Please read the documentation carefully in advance of queries and submission.

• Call for Proposals (pdf)
• Frequently Asked Questions (pdf)
• Ethical Issues Table – to be included in the BIAP 2016 full proposal (pdf)

SFI reserves the right to make amendments to the documents if required. Please ensure that you are referring to the most recent version of the call document and FAQs. Research Offices will be contacted in the event of any updates to the call documentation.

For programme-related queries please contact partnerships@sfi.ie.

Webinar

SFI and Pfizer jointly hosted a webinar on 19th July 2016. The webinar provides a thorough overview of the SFI-Pfizer Biotherapeutics Innovation Award Programme 2016 call.

The webinar slides are available here.