AIFA was the first medicines agency in Europe to include among its institutional objectives the promotion of public scientific research on strategic drug sectors, even in areas of little interest for profit research.

The AIFA independent research program is aimed at all Italian researchers from institutions who intend to conduct studies not for commercial purposes, and is financed by a share of the fund made up of the contribution equal to 5% of the promotional expenses incurred annually by pharmaceutical companies.

The Agency supports no profit clinical studies, aimed at:

• comparisons between medicines to demonstrate additional therapeutic value
• studies on orphan drugs and rare diseases
• studies on prescriptive appropriateness and aimed at optimizing therapeutic strategies
• studies on the safety profile of medicines and on information

Calls for funding for independent research are published periodically to optimally respond to the new needs that arise in the healthcare sector at an increasingly accelerated pace.

AIFA intends to share with the National Health Service operators the scientific publications relating to the studies financed under the calls from 2005 to 2017 by providing the links to the above mentioned publications.

Since 2005 studies funded by AIFA with independent research calls have been 282, for a total of 307 publications in international peer reviewed scientific journals. In most cases, these are interventional studies.

The most common areas are orphan drugs and rare diseases, comparative drug studies, new pharmacological strategies, active pharmacovigilance studies and pharmacoepidemiology studies.