People with diabetes invited to join online research debate

People living with diabetes are invited to join in a live debate taking place today to help shape the future of research into their condition.

The Diabetes Patient Focus Meeting is being staged in Brussels as well as online, giving people the opportunity to talk to leaders from medicine, academia and industry about how the condition affects their daily lives.

The event will be webstreamed live over the internet –  click here to take part – and the Twitter hashtag is #IMIJDRF.

It has been organised by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and Type 1 charity the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) as part of a move to identify research and development gaps in the diabetes area – from the perspective of patient needs and challenges.

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is the world’s largest public-private partnership in health – a joint undertaking between the European Union and the pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA. JDRF is the leading global charity funding Type 1 diabetes research, currently sponsoring research in 17 countries.

Karen Addington, Chief Executive of JDRF UK, said: “Research progress in Type 1 diabetes has never been faster than it is today. There are now tangible opportunities for research to transform the lives of people affected by the condition.

“But it is crucial that those people are placed at the heart of the research dialogue. Only by doing this can we achieve our goal of progressively removing the impact of the condition from people’s lives, until we achieve a world without Type 1 diabetes.”

Michel Goldman, IMI Executive Director, added: “This meeting will cover the whole spectrum of diabetes and go beyond the typical Type 1 and 2 classifications, to explore the commonalities between the different metabolic disorders, their causes and current therapies. The patients’ perspective is an invaluable asset in scientists’ and industry’s quest for a diabetes cure, and moreover is at the core of IMI’s mission”.

This IMI-JDRF initiative aims to identify research and development gaps in the diabetes area from the patient’s perspective. Discussing unmet patients’ needs will help guide decisions on future research topics on diabetes in IMI and in JDRF’s activities.

IMI and JDRF will publish a joint report on the event’s conclusions later in 2014.