[16] The rare disease topics in the 2012 and 2013 FP7 Health Calls were: 'Support for international rare disease research; Clinical utility of –omics for better diagnosis of rare diseases; Databases, biobanks and clinical ‘bio-informatics’ hub for rare diseases; Preclinical and clinical development of orphan drugs; Observational trials in rare diseases; Best practice and knowledge sharing in clinical management of rare diseases (2012) and Development of imaging technologies for therapeutic interventions in rare diseases; New methodologies for clinical trials for small population groups (2013).

We then put it into humans and we put it into different phases of clinical research—phase one, phase two, phase three—and that research, the pre-clinical toxicology and the clinical work, is done all over the world. Again, this isn't all focused in one country.

There has been a sizeable increase in the resources allocated to basic preclinical and clinical research on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the Sixth Framework Programme.

Research will focus on: developing promising candidate interventions (vaccines, therapies and HIV microbicides) against the target diseases by sponsoring research over the full spectrum from basic molecular research, taking advantage of microbial genomics, through to pre-clinical testing and proof-of-principle; establishing a clinical trials programme to unite and support Europe's clinical trial activities specifically targeted at interventions for use in developing countries; establishing an AIDS Therapy Trials Network in Europe to improve the coherence and complementarity ...[+++] of clinical trials of AIDS therapies for European use.

Research will focus on: developing promising candidate interventions (vaccines, therapies and HIV microbicides) against the target diseases by sponsoring research over the full spectrum from basic molecular research, taking advantage of microbial genomics, through to pre-clinical testing and proof-of-principle; establishing a clinical trials programme to unite and support Europe's clinical trial activities specifically targeted at interventions for use in developing countries; establishing an AIDS Therapy Trials Network in Europe to improve the coherence and complementarity ...[+++] of clinical trials of AIDS therapies for European use.

The development of specific, sensitive, pre-clinical and in vivo tests continues therefore to be the major challenge in TSE research.