For the majority of people with asthma their symptoms are controllable with medication. But this is not the case for people with severe asthma.

Around 1 out of 10 people with asthma have life-threatening symptoms despite taking high levels of medicines on a daily basis, and the condition has a profound effect on their quality of life. It is therefore extremely important to gain a greater understanding of severe asthma and identify new treatments.

To drive severe asthma research forward, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) has established a funding partnership between the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and the European Commission.

This partnership funds large scale collaborative research. The objective of IMI is to encourage pharmaceutical companies to work together with scientists, clinicians and patient organisations from across Europe, thereby removing bottlenecks, which currently exist in developing new treatments.

It is clear that new treatments are needed for severe asthma. But limitations exist in terms of identifying those patients who will benefit from a particular drug and identifying sufficient numbers of patients to participate in clinical trials.

By bringing together all relevant groups with an interest in severe asthma, it is believed that significant steps can be taken to overcome these bottlenecks and identify new treatments.

The project >