EHDEN not-for-profit and Lundbeck collaborate on first research programme, in Neuroscience

Brussels, Belgium, 21st of February 2023:  The European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN) and Lundbeck announce they have begun formative stages of neuroscience research with the EHDEN network and potential partners, including other Pharma companies.

As an Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) project, EHDEN will reach end-of-its project phase in April 2024. To ensure EHDEN’s achievements will continue benefiting the patients and its collaborators, also to support the continuous development of EHDEN’s ecosystem of Data Partners and standardised open source tools beyond 2024, a new not-for-profit (NFP) entity has been established in The Netherlands. As part of its sustainability pathway, EHDEN will be transitioning from the IMI phase to the NFP over the coming eighteen months. Part of the NFP’s strategy is to initiate non-competitive research collaboration with Data Partners, Academia, and Industry to address research needs in different therapeutic areas.

The first such programme will be in neuroscience, focusing on areas from migraine to neurodegenerative diseases, collaborating with the unique open science community and network that EHDEN has created across Europe. Neurological disorders are the leading cause of disability and the second leading cause of death worldwide, with an increasing burden of death and disability, especially in low- and middle-income countries. There is an urgent need for more research into neurological disorders from prevention through to treatment and care1.

We are absolutely delighted to be collaborating with our first partner, Lundbeck, for our first research programme, in our start-up sustainability phase.

It is an important step for all of us to initiate research programmes where we can focus our scientific work in a therapeutic area such as neuroscience, collaborating with our Data Partner network, benefiting patients, but also demonstrating the power of EHDEN.

Professor Peter Rijnbeek

Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Coordinator of EHDEN

Lundbeck is a global pharmaceutical company specialised in brain diseases. For more than 70 years, the company has been at the forefront of neuroscience research. Lundbeck joined the IMI EHDEN Consortium on 1st September 2022.

Lundbeck is now the first partner to join the neuroscience research programme.

Headache disorders affect the quality of life for millions of people and reduce their participation and contribution to society. To be able to better support this community, we need to improve our understanding of individual patients and the disease population.

The remarkable work of EHDEN has established a unique European health data landscape, with remarkable levels of standardisation for data and studies that may provide a better understanding of disease characteristics and consequences. With the aim to advance knowledge and benefit patients, we are proud to be EHDEN’s first partner in the neuroscience research programme.

Bjørn Sperling

Vice President of Clinical Development for the therapeutic areas of Migraine, Pain and neuroimmunology at Lundbeck

Working in a high complexity field, such as with the human brain, it is critical to rely on accurate data-driven insights. As an organisation dedicated to restoring brain health, we are excited to be part of the neuroscience research programme supported by the EHDEN project’s sustainability pathway.

This partnership will contribute to the neuroscience ecosystem in Europe and support R&D activities. We also hope to be working soon with more collaborators.

Tarek Samad

Senior Vice President, Head of Research at Lundbeck

Partners participating in the programme will be engaged in a public-private partnership, guiding, and shaping the direction of a substantive research programme with a relevant network of Data Partners. Critical to this partnership will be the emphasis on science, adding to the literature base, and informing developments in the therapeutic area. Ultimately, this partnership could contribute to the creation of an Observational Environment for Neuroscience in Europe, facilitating high quality, timely, real world evidence generation for better disease understanding and assessment of the value of different types of interventions.

There is a massive unmet need for new and effective therapeutics and better care across for neurological disorders from migraine to cancers, to neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, which could be addressed with better understanding of these diseases in the real world.

This is the start of a longer term collaboration to address that need with public and private partners working together with key experts to conduct open science studies. We look forward to the scientific output of the first research programmes, and others to come.

Professor Daniel Prieto-Alhambra

University of Oxford, and Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, and Research Coordinator, EHDEN

EHDEN and Lundbeck are keen to hear from other potential partners and look forward to keeping the neuroscience and wider research communities informed on progress.

 

  1. Feigin VL, Vos T, et al; The global burden of neurological disorders: translating evidence into policy; The Lancet Neurology 2019; 19 (3): P255-265; DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(19)30411-9

 

ENDS

About EHDEN

Every day, patients are not receiving optimal healthcare because we are not able to tap into the unlimited potential of real-world data. In response to this, EHDEN (European Health Data & Evidence Network) was created as a public-private partnership under the framework of the IMI2 (Innovative Medicines Initiative). EHDEN aspires to be the trusted observational research ecosystem to enable better health decisions, outcomes, and care, with a mission to provide a new paradigm for the discovery and analysis of health data in Europe, by building a large-scale, federated network of data sources standardised to a common data model.

The European Health Data & Evidence Network has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 806968. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.

About Lundbeck

Lundbeck A/S (LUN.CO, LUN DC, HLUYY) is a global pharmaceutical company specialised in brain diseases. For more than 70 years, Lundbeck has been at the forefront of neuroscience research. We are tirelessly dedicated to restoring brain health, so every person can be their best.

Too many people worldwide live with brain diseases - complex conditions often invisible to others that nonetheless take a tremendous toll on individuals, families, and societies. Lundbeck is committed to fighting stigma and discrimination against people living with brain diseases and advocating for broader social acceptance of people with brain health conditions. Every day, Lundbeck employees strive for improved treatment and a better life for people living with brain disease.

Lundbeck has approximately 5,600 employees in more than fifty countries, and products are available in more than 100 countries. Research programmes tackle some of the most complex challenges in neuroscience, and the pipeline is focused on bringing forward transformative treatments for which there are few, if any therapeutic options. Lundbeck has research facilities in Denmark and the United States, and production facilities are located in Denmark, France, and Italy.

For additional information, please visit our corporate site www.lundbeck.com and connect on Instagram (h_lundbeck), Twitter at @Lundbeck and via LinkedIn.