History

The EUPATI project generated educational resources in six key areas, namely

• Discovery of Medicines & Planning of Medicine Development
• Non-Clinical Testing and Pharmaceutical Development
• Exploratory and Confirmatory Clinical Development
• Clinical Trials
• Regulatory Affairs, Medicinal Product Safety, Pharmacovigilance and Pharmacoepidemiology
• HTA principles and practices

To ensure quality, factual accuracy, neutrality, accessibility and readability of the material, EUPATI established a robust content production, review, and approval process. All content has been released under the Creative Commons license.

The IMI-EUPATI project addressed two main audiences. The EUPATI Patient Expert Training Course was designed for the ‘Expert Level’. The ‘Education Level’ material in the EUPATI Toolbox on Medicines R&D addresses patient advocates, patients, and the health-interested lay public.

Two EUPATI Patient Expert Training Courses, each with a duration of over 14 months, were conducted within the timeframe of IMI-EUPATI and two more have followed since the end of the project. The impact of the EUPATI Patient Expert Training Course has been important, evidenced by the leading roles the EUPATI Fellows have taken in the debate on patient involvement in R&D.

EUPATI’s second core product, the EUPATI Toolbox on Medicines R&D, was launched in January 2016. The EUPATI Toolbox covers almost all topics of the EUPATI Patient Expert Training Course but is provided in 13 languages. Across all languages, the EUPATI Toolbox contains articles, presentations, videos, webinars, images, factsheets, video interviews, a documentary, infographics, glossary items and acronyms. More than 5 million individual users have accessed the EUPATI Toolbox by February 2022. The EUPATI toolbox has become the key knowledge resource and reference for any party interested in learning about medicines Research and Development.

Initiated during the IMI-project duration, the network of EUPATI National Platforms (ENPs) continues to grow. Currently ENPs have been set up in 23 countries (as of February 2022). The National Platforms have organised and are preparing a variety of activities, including webinars, information days, trainings, and social media campaigns.

EUPATI has published four guidances on patient involvement in R&D. Each guidance document recommends working methods and processes, and suggests specific activities and areas for patient involvement.

EUPATI, building on the strong foundation laid out by IMI-EUPATI, has been a game changer for patient education and patient engagement in medicines R&D and continues to be one of the key drivers of the public and citizens’ debate on this topic at a pan-European level, bringing together all stakeholder groups. EUPATI has empowered European health-interested citizens and patient advocates to become main actors in R&D.

With its educational resources on www.eupati.eu and its highly trained group of EUPATI Fellows, EUPATI has provided the growing, key resource for any kind of research that relies on knowledgeable patients, patient organisation representatives, patient advocates and patient experts.

EUPATI is a success story created with the support of IMI, its partners and the patient community, directly based on the results of the original project, but also taking into account the evolution of the patient engagement landscape. It has built a viable business model and continues to expand its activities in Europe and worldwide.

The content and the EUPATI.eu platform produced under IMI-EUPATI are the products of a pan-European public-private partnership of diverse stakeholders, involving patients and patient representatives, academia, regulatory bodies, independent government institutions, non-profit organisations, and pharmaceutical companies. Please see here the list of the IMI-EUPATI Consortium Partners.

EFOEUPATI project (2018-2020) aimed to ensure optimal use and sustainability of the key results of the IMI-EUPATI project (2012-2017): Patient Expertise Training, the Multilingual Public Toolbox and EUPATI’s national platform network. It was imperative that these pillars would continue to exist in the medium and long term to address the growing area of ​​patient engagement.

Goal

• Develop a sustainable sustainability / business model for the future of EUPATI activities in the medium term.
• Create a patient education and engagement portal that will host relevant information and resources for patients and other stakeholders to ensure meaningful and value-creating patient engagement in drug research and development. This will replace the existing EUPATI website.
• Strengthen the coordination and impact of the existing NETWORK OF THE NATIONAL EUPATI Platform (ENP) through the promotion of cooperation, knowledge exchange and sharing.

The IMI-EFOEUPATI project was launched on 1 September 2018 and ran for 24 months, until August 2020. The project was co-lead by the European Patients’ Forum (EPF) and Bayer.

This project received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 806995. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.