NIH Foundation, Eli Lilly Launch US-Russia Science Partnership

(U.S. Department of State)

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) in Bethesda, Maryland and Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, Indiana have started a U.S.–Russia Forum in Health Sciences to encourage collaboration on shared priorities in health related research.

FNIH is establishing the forum with a $1.3 million grant from Eli Lilly as the founding private partner, and the Fogarty International Center and Clinical Center as the lead NIH participants. The partnership aims to encourage collaboration in public health, focusing on disease control and prevention, clinical and translational research, manufacturing practices and regulatory science, and emerging technologies in the field of health care. It plans to include participants from both the public and private sectors engaged in biomedical and behavioral research and development.

The partnership will sponsor a clinical and translational research-training program in Russia. An annual symposium is planned as well to identify strategies to encourage joint research, enhance interdisciplinary work, bridge the gap between research and practice, and maximize the public benefit of basic and clinical discoveries.  The forum will also feature joint-research proposal development, scientific exchanges and research conferences, and explore the development of bilateral biomedical and behavioral research programs.