University Medical Center Utrecht

With approximately 12,000 employees, the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) is one of the largest public health care institutions in the Netherlands and the largest employer in the region. UMCU is a leading international university medical center generating, testing, sharing, and applying knowledge on health, illness, and health care for the benefit of patients and society. UMCU aims to play a major role on the international research stage and plays a leading role in research and innovation in a selected number of fields: the strategic programs, including brain. UMCU aims to make the created knowledge available for clinical and feasibility studies, and subsequently put that knowledge into clinical practice. That in turn results in products, processes and services for healthcare. UMCU actively seeks collaboration with patients and other interested parties, for instance by involving them in research, education, and by asking them for input on how healthcare should be organized.
In the UMCU, the programme “BRAIN” is one of the six strategic programs. Research of this strategic program is concentrated in the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus (BCRM), the major clinical, preclinical and fundamental institute sharply focussed on five brain disease areas: neurodevelopmental disorders, psychosis, epilepsy, stroke and ALS.

The UMCU team participating in the PRISM project belongs to the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus (BCRM) disease area of psychosis and neurodevelopmental disorders and has a strong expertise in clinical research. The UMCU team contributes to work packages on clinical deep phenotyping (WP4) and clinical harmonisation (WP5). Those tasks are required to answer the core questions of PRISM.



Eli Lilly and Company Limited



concentris research management GmbH

concentris is a small and alert team of project managers with longstanding experience in the management of research projects in the IMI1 and IMI2 Programmes as well as the 6th,7th, and H2020 Framework Programmes of the EU.

We carry out the non-scientific tasks of EU projects and provide support and consultancy services for scientists and researchers at universities, in businesses and research institutes from the first project idea to the successful completion. As the project office, concentris is the central point of reference of PRISM. With know-how, concentration, and dedication, they support their partners with the following services:
• Proposal writing and project planning – Intentionally increasing opportunities
• Project management – Safe and professional from one source
• Financial management – Minimising risks
• Conference services – Helping to achieve more real results
• Dissemination and project marketing – Making results visible
• Training organisation – Improving research quality in Europe



VU University Medical Center

This project will be embedded at the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology (Alzheimer center) of the VU University Medical Center (VUMC). VUMC is a part of VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. VU University currently comprises fifteen faculties, caters for 12000 students and contains world-class research facilities.

The Department of Psychiatry is a strong, multidisciplinary department with 9 professors, over 20 postdoctoral researchers and assistant professors, 50 PhD-students, and many clinical staff members. The VUmc Alzheimer center is part of the department of Neurology of the VUmc. Staff includes 5 neurologists, 2 specialized nurses, 2 senior researchers, 5 postdoctoral fellows and more than 25 PhD students. The Alzheimer center closely collaborates with many departments and disciplines, including the departments of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Clinical Chemistry, Clinical Neurophysiology, Geriatrics, Psychiatry, and Medical Psychology.

Research is embedded in two world-class interdisciplinary, interfaculty Research Institutes, both ranked as “excellent” by International Review Committees:
1. EMGO+ Institute for Care and Health Research (www.emgo.nl): leaders in epidemiological and clinical research. In 2013, members published 1124 refereed articles. For publications between 2008 and 2011, the scientific impact of EMGO+ research was 58% above world average in the respective research field.
2. Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam (NCA, www.neurosciencecampus-amsterdam.nl): leaders in neurobiological and genetic research. In 2013, over 20% of the 510 peer-reviewed publications from NCA researchers were in the highest impact journals (IF~9 or higher). 46% were in the top 10% of journals. 80% were in the top 25% of journals.

Mental health is a key research programme at each institute, both lead by Professor Penninx. Both institutes support the development of researchers, offering postgraduate training in epidemiology, statistics and neuroscience.



Janssen Research and Development

For more than 75 years, Janssen has been helping improve health around the world. From early discovery to distribution, patient access and education, we continuously search for ways to deliver quality and value. Advancing the best science into a transformational medicine is just the first step to helping people lead healthier lives. Janssen are committed to making a meaningful difference in global public health. Our overarching aspiration is to help more people in more places have access to our medicines and to sustainable, effective healthcare solutions.

Neuropsychiatric diseases and pain conditions have a staggering effect on people and society. An estimated 44 million people worldwide have dementia; schizophrenia affects approximately 24 million people globally; more than 350 million people around the world have depression, and 1.5 billion people in the world suffer from chronic pain.

The Janssen Neuroscience Therapeutic Area is deeply committed to patients with these conditions and to the health care professionals and loved ones who care for them. Our research priorities are Alzheimer’s disease, Mood Disorders, Schizophrenia and Pain. Across neuroscience, our researchers are exploring the emerging science of synaptic plasticity and cellular resilience, with an emphasis on developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of severe mood disorders and neurodegenerative dementias.

We are enhancing the Janssen Neuroscience culture of innovation and bringing forth new treatments for those in need. We are united and energized by one mission—discovering, developing and delivering differentiated medicines that address the most serious unmet medical needs of our time.

Our strategy is to harness the best science in the world, whether from our own laboratories or through strategic relationships and collaborations with academia, biotech and other pharmaceutical companies.

We share a deep commitment to the communities in which we live and work. This passion is expressed through sponsorship of scientific symposia, educational programs about brain disorders, development of global mental health programs, and other scholarly and community-based activities. We are also strongly focused on projects that break down global stigma about brain disorders. The Neuroscience TA also is leading scientific research into integrated solutions and informatics, moving away from only single pharmacologic treatments and toward integrated health care solutions.

With their extensive experience in preclinical and clinical neuroscience, the experimental medicine team members will contribute time and scientific expertise to work packages 2, 4, 5 and 6.



Takeda Development Centre Europe Ltd

Located in Osaka, Japan, Takeda is a research-based global company with its main focus on pharmaceuticals. As the largest pharmaceutical company in Japan and one of the global leaders of the industry, Takeda is committed to strive towards better health for patients worldwide through leading innovation in medicine. Additional information about Takeda is available at www.takeda.com.



F.Hoffmann-La Roche

With one of the strongest pipelines in the industry, Roche Neuroscience is developing medicines for a range of serious neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, spinal muscular atrophy, depression, Parkinson’s disease and Down syndrome.



Pfizer Inc.



Novartis Pharma AG

Scientific research drives innovation at Novartis. Our researchers work to push the boundaries of science, broaden our understanding of diseases and develop novel products with significant benefits for patients. We are focusing on faulty molecular pathways and therapeutic areas where we see the greatest unmet medical need and believe the scientific tools to address these needs are within reach.

The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) is the innovation engine of Novartis. More than 6 000 scientists and physicians prioritize work based on areas of greatest patient need and scientific understanding of disease.

NIBR takes a unique approach to pharmaceutical research. At the earliest stages, research priorities are determined by patient need and disease understanding.

At NIBR, physician-scientists are breaking down the boundaries between research and clinical practice. We use Proof-of-Concept clinical trials (small-scale studies used to get an early read on a drug’s safety and effectiveness) to help us find and advance the most promising drug candidates.

We believe we can better answer the demand for safer, more effective medicines by keeping our sights on both the science and the patient.



Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG

Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world’s 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, Boehringer Ingelheim operates globally through 145 affiliates and a total of some 47,500 employees. The focus of the family-owned company, founded in 1885, is on researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing new medications of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine. In 2015, Boehringer Ingelheim achieved net sales of about 14.8 billion euros. R&D expenditure corresponds to 20.3 per cent of net sales.

Boehringer Ingelheim’s approach in CNS focuses on research to address unanswered challenges and needs in this area. With symptom led research we are investigating the underlying neurobiology of the brain across mental disorders such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and depression.

We are optimistic that our symptom led approach, through better understanding of brain circuitry, will lead to the development of effective treatments that can be applied across a range of mental illness.

To complement our own innovation, we partner with academic and clinical experts, companies and research organisations at the forefront of neuroscience and psychiatry. One latest example is our collaboration with the Californian pharmaceutical company Arena. We are keen to explore opportunities to broaden research potential with the wider research community.