2015 Quebec/France Joint Program

Call for Projects

2015 Quebec/France Joint Program

Deadline: April7,2015 EST

1)  Scope of the program

The main goal of the Quebec/France joint program is to strengthen biomedical research in Quebec, Alsace and Rhône-Alpes by aligning scientific resources and expertise. This collaborative program gives the opportunity for private and public organizations based in Quebec, Alsace and Rhône-Alpes to expand into new markets.

This program is not intended to fund research on new drugs for specific therapeutic segments. Rather, it is meant to finance the development of novel and potentially transformative next-generation technologies with an immediate and strong impact on the drug discovery and/or development process.

This program promotes creativity, innovation, multi-disciplinarity and collaborative efforts between academic institutions and private organizations [biotech/contract research organizations (CRO)].

2)  Program requirements

Each research proposal must:

·  Include a strong collaboration between at least one research entity (public or private) in Quebec and at least one private entity in Alsace and/or Rhône-Alpes. Please note that in Alsace and Rhône-Alpes, only private entities are eligible to apply. In Quebec, the participation of a private organization is highly encouraged and preferred, but not mandatory;

·  Generate clear deliverables with immediate applications in the drug discovery and/or development process of new drugs;

·  Be highly innovative with a strong and wide potential impact on biopharmaceutical research.

3)  Research agenda

The research agenda is broad and covers all therapeutic fields and all research areas that could bring new tools for biopharmaceutical research, such as engineering, nanotechnologies, medical devices, diagnostics, translational medicine and imaging. This program is not meant to fund fundamental research projects. Investigators working on applied research projects are strongly encouraged to apply.

Only projects with a well-defined near-term application deemed to significantly impact biopharmaceutical research will be funded under this program.

4)  Funding specifics

CQDM, Alsace BioValley and Lyonbiopôle plan to select 1 project in this competition.

Duration: Minimum 2 years, maximum 3 years.

General financing terms:

·  The research done in Quebec will be directly financed by the CQDM as a grant.

A maximum of $700,000 could be awarded to the Quebec arm of the project;

·  Akin to universities, SMEs are eligible for financing without having to offer in-kind or monetary contribution;

·  The project contributions from Quebec and Alsace and/or Rhône-Alpes should be comparable (in terms of resources and/or budget);

·  Multinational pharmaceutical companies cannot be considered as eligible private collaborators in this program;

·  The research performed in Alsace and/or Rhône-Alpes could be funded by local authorities (European, national or local) and by BPI France (an agency that supports SMEs). The financial package will depend on the amount budgeted and, importantly, on the number of partners involved.

This funding may take the form of grants or repayable advances, covering part of the project costs, in compliance with European regulations.

Further details will be provided by CQDM, Alsace BioValley or Lyonbiopôle upon request.

Eligible costs:

Eligible costs are defined as reasonable costs for items that directly support the objectives of the project:

·  Salaries of research personnel (students, post-doctoral fellows, technical/professional assistants) and support staff (e.g. project managers) needed for the completion of the project;

·  Material and laboratory supplies required to achieve the project;

·  Travel expenses (field work, collaborations, conferences);

·  Subcontracting.

Non eligible costs:

·  Equipment and facilities (purchase or rental);

·  Salary of the principal investigator and co-investigators.

5)  Review and decision process

Applicants must submit a full proposal (using the form available on our website www.cqdm.org) no later than April7,2015 at 5 PM EST via the CQDM secure website (https://cqdm.firmex.com). The content of this proposal must be developed by the Quebec and French partners.

Funding will be awarded following a competitive evaluation process in 2 phases.

1)  Phase 1 - preselection

Firstly, CQDM’s Strategic Orientation Committee will evaluate the impact on the drug discovery and development process, and the overall quality of the project. Applicants who received approval for their Phase I application will be invited to submit a Phase 2 document including requested additional information and responses addressing the comments, concerns and questions from CQDM’s Strategic Orientation Committee.

2)  Phase 2 - Final Selection (by invitation only)

Applicants must submit the Phase2 document no later than May 19, 2015 at 5 PM EST.

This new version of the application will be evaluated by Alsace BioValley’s and Lyonbiopôle’s Scientific and Economic Committees.

The scientific excellence, applicability and feasibility of the project will be evaluated by the Alsace BioValley and Lyonbiopôle Committees. Evaluators will be chosen for their specific scientific and/or industrial expertise in the field of the submitted projects. In parallel, a risk analysis will be conducted by the funding agencies.

Scientific evaluation

The applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

·  Scientific excellence;

·  Creativity and innovation;

·  Socio-economic impact of the project for the collaborators;

·  Positioning and competitive edge;

·  Feasibility to execute the project within allocated time and budget;

·  Well-defined deliverables, milestones and schedule;

·  Potential applications in drug research:

o  immediate impact on drug discovery or development;

o  capacity to address important unmet needs;

·  Track record of the participants (principal investigator/lead and co-investigators/co-leads);

·  Multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational aspects of the research candidates;

·  Complementarity between partners.

Risk analysis

Concurrently with the scientific evaluation, CQDM, Alsace BioValley and Lyonbiopôle will evaluate aspects linked to intellectual property, potential ethical issues, corporate information (in the case of private companies) as well as any potential risks that could jeopardize the research project. Furthermore, given that this funding program implies large scale projects focusing on applicable results that will require significant multidisciplinary resources, the project management aspect will also be an important criteria in the evaluation.

Final selection

During the Phase2, the final selection of completed application will be carried out by CQDM’s Strategic Orientation Committee and Alsace BioValley’s and Lyonbiopôle’s Scientific and Economic Committees. They will take into account the results from the scientific evaluation, the risk analysis and the Phase 2 document to make the final selection of the research projects.

6)  Intellectual property (IP) and licensing policy

·  A research agreement must be signed by all research entities involved in the project within 3 months after the funding confirmation;

·  Intellectual property generated under this funding program will be managed according to the policies of the financial partners involved;

·  A license option will be granted to the CQDM industrial sponsors (the parent organizations and their subsidiaries) for the use of all the results for R&D purposes only. The main conditions of the end-user license option will be negotiated before the beginning of the project and will take into account preexisting IP as well as contribution from each party;

·  CQDM industrial sponsors will have no rights to commercialize the IP resulting from the project or the pre-existing IP.

7)  Monitoring of funded projects

For all funded projects, one project manager in Quebec and one project manager in France must be identified by successful applicants. These people will be responsible for co-ordinating all financial reports and scientific reports. CQDM, Alsace BioValley and Lyonbiopôle will monitor the progress of the project, and continuation of funding will be dependent on satisfactory progress against agreed milestones and budget.

All funded projects will be assigned mentors from the pharmaceutical sector with experience in the drug discovery and development process. Mentors are experienced scientists from CQDM’s corporate pharmaceutical members who provide expertise and access to useful resources. Their role is to ensure that the project is progressing so that its output remains in line with the agreed project and is applicable to industry drug discovery/development programs.

8)  Timetable

To facilitate the preparation of the joint application, an information and networking session will be held on January29 and 30, 2015 (in Strasbourg, address to be confirmed). Interested investigators and companies located in France must register with Alsace BioValley and Lyobiopôle before January23,2015, while those located in Quebec must register with the CQDM by January16th.

Call for projects - kick-off / November17, 2014
Information and networking session, Strasbourg, France / January29-30,2015
Application deadline / April7,2015 at 5PM EST
Announcement of the preselected projects / April30,2015
Deadline to submit Phase2 documents (by invitation only) / May19,2015 at 5PM EST
Final selection announcement / July17,2015

9)  Submission procedure for full applications

An electronic version must be submitted on CQDM’s secure site no later than April7,2015 at 5PM EST (https://cqdm.firmex.com). Applicants must contact Eugénie Bergeron-Côté at before March15,2015 to obtain their username and password.

The electronic applications must include the following documents:

·  The signed PDF version of the application form. The document must be labelled as follows: Name of the principal investigator in Quebec_Name of the principal investigator/lead in Alsace_Name of the principal investigator/lead in Rhône-Alpes_Application

·  The electronic PDF version of the CV of all principal investigators and co-investigators. The document must be labelled as follows: Name of the principal investigator in Quebec_Name of the principal investigator/lead in Alsace_Name of the principal investigator/lead in Rhône-Alpes_CV

·  The electronic .XLS version of the financial appendix. The document must be labelled as follows: Name of the principal investigator in Quebec_Name of the principal investigator/lead in Alsace_Name of the principal investigator/lead in Rhône-Alpes_AF

Please disable all security parameters of the PDF documents to be submitted.

Contact information

For further information, please contact:

Marc Thibault
Director of programs
CQDM
+ 1 (514) 766-6661, ext. 2190

www.cqdm.org / Agnès Legoll
Director Europe and International
Alsace BioValley
+33 (3) 90 40 57 40

www.alsace-biovalley.com / Hugo Veysseyre
Project coordinator, Clinical Innovation
Lyonbiopôle
+33 (0) 4 72 76 53 35

www.lyonbiopole.com

Call for Projects - Quebec/France joint program 2015 2