European Commission (EC) opens funding call on development of new effective therapies for rare diseases

On October 6^th, 2021, the European Commission (EC) opened a new funding call titled “Tackling diseases (Two Stage – 2022) (HORIZON-HLTH-2022-DISEASE-06-two-stage)” in the context of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme on the development of new effective therapies for rare diseases.

Since the EC recommends that proposals try and take stock of the FAIR guidance and other existing strategies ECRIN can accompany researchers in their proposal development through our core services or through the EJP RD project where multiple services for prospective applicants including our support to clinical trials.

Where rare diseases are concerned the call is currently accepting proposals that meet the following requirements:

• Aim to develop therapies for rare diseases with no approved therapeutic option, focusing on group(s) of rare diseases with commonalities, such as shared biological features, and should NOT address a single disease only.
• The therapies to be developed may include a broad family of therapeutic interventions, such as small molecule(s), advanced therapy medicinal products, repurposing of existing medicinal products, including non-pharmacological interventions and/or their combinations, as relevant.
• To ensure that the needs of people living with a rare disease are adequately addressed, the involvement of patient representatives in all phases of the research and development process is strongly encouraged.
• Rare infectious diseases and rare cancers are excluded from this topic and will not be considered.

The topic will support proposals covering several different stages in the continuum of the innovation pathway (i.e., translational, preclinical, clinical research, validation in the clinical and/or real-world setting etc.), as relevant.

The funding call has the following deadlines: February 1^st, 2022, and September 6^th, 2022