Competition and Funding / CQDM Focus Competition
General Information
Scope of the program
The CQDM funding program is aimed at developing innovative technologies or tools that can facilitate the discovery or the development of new drugs.
CQDM’s program does not intend to fund research on new drugs for specific therapeutic segments. Instead, it is meant to finance the development of new technologies that will have the power to enable the discovery process across several therapeutic fields.
This program covers all fields directly related to drug research, and also all research areas that could bring new tools for biopharmaceutical research (for example, engineering, nanotechnologies, medical devices, diagnostics, translational medicine, imaging, etc.).
The CQDM program encourages creativity, multidisciplinarity and collaborative efforts between academic institutions and industrial (SMEs, biotechs, CROs) partners.
Duration and Amount of the Grant
- Duration
Maximum 3 years
- Total amount
$1,000,000 - $2,000,000 (for 3 years)
- Eligible costs
Intellectual Property
Pre-existing intellectual property necessary for carrying out the proposed project must be free of all encumbrances.
Intellectual property generated under this funding program will belong to the inventors and their affiliated research entities. A non-exclusive end-user license option will be granted to the CQDM’s industrial sponsors for internal research purposes only.
For more informations, see Call for proposals
Review and decision process
CQDM’s funding will be awarded following a competitive process in two stages:
- Preliminary application (Letter of intent)
The selection of the letters of intent will be overseen by the CQDM’s Strategic Orientation Committee. Only applicants whose letter of intent will be selected will be invited to submit a full project proposal.
- Full proposal
Evaluation of the full proposals will involve an international peer review led by “the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec” (FRSQ) and a risk analysis performed by CQDM. The results of both assessments will be presented to CQDM’s board of directors which will make the final selection of the research projects to be funded.
Selection criteria
The following criteria will be used for the evaluation of the applications:
- scientific excellence;
- creativity and innovation;
- clear deliverables, milestones and schedule;
- feasibility of the project (deliverables, timetable, human and financial resources);
- capacity to generate applicable deliverables at the end of the project;
- potential of applications in drug research:
- direct impact on drug discovery or drug development;
- capacity to address important unmet needs.
- track record of the participants;
- multidisciplinary and multi-organizational aspects of the research.
As the CQDM funding program is meant to bring solutions to the most urgent needs of the biopharmaceutical drug research industry, a strong emphasis will be placed on the capacity to generate applicable results (after the funding period) with an immediate impact on the drug discovery or development process in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Although not mandatory, projects involving strong collaborations between multidisciplinary research teams from both the academic and private (biotech/CRO) sectors will be prioritized. The proposal can be led either by an academic institution or a private organization. Please note that multinational pharmaceutical companies cannot be considered as eligible private collaborators in this program.
Given that CQDM’s funding program imvolves large scale projects oriented towards applicable results that will require significant multidisciplinary resources, project management aspects will also be important in the evaluation process.
The amount requested will be taken into consideration in the selection. Within its budget constraints, CQDM will attempt to maximize the number of projects funded and the impact for biopharmaceutical research.