About the Program

Research Priorities

The program’s research priorities for the 2020/2021 cycle are as follows:

Clinical Research Award

• Microbleeds
• Subclinical bleeds
• Joint pain
• Patient-reported outcomes
• Role of FVIII vs. non-FVIII replacement therapy
• Lab monitoring, etc.

Basic Research Award

• Role of FVIII outside of coagulation
• Inhibitors
• Immunogenicity
• Lab monitoring research and applications.

Previous Research

In previous award cycles the Program has provided funding to support several projects in the following areas:

• Aspects of the molecular biology of vWF structure and function and the diagnosis and treatment of vWD
• The function and regulation of platelets and the diagnosis of platelet disorders.

As a result, the Program will not award projects in these areas during this award cycle.

Excluded Research Topics

In order to maintain a focus on hemophilia and bleeding disorders, the Program will not support research focused on:

• Products or technologies licensed or patented by competitors of Bayer
• Cancer diagnosis or therapy
• AIDS diagnosis or hepatitis therapy except where specifically related to patients with hemophilia and HIV, HCV or HBV
• Cardiovascular disease diagnosis or therapy
• Purely thrombotic disorders.

Application Process

Letters of Intent and Full Applications are reviewed by the Grants Review and Awards Committee which comprises 10 members, representing many of the leading experts from clinical and academic medicine:

• Alok Srivastava MD, Vellore, India (chairman)
• Valder Arruda MD, Philadelphia, USA
• Marijke van den Berg MD, Utrecht, Netherlands
• Craig Kessler MD, Washington DC, USA
• Riitta Lassila MD, Helsinki, Finland
• David Lillicrap MD, Kingston, Canada
• Pier Mannucci MD, Milan, Italy
• Johannes Oldenburg MD, Bonn, Germany
• Keiji Nogami MD, Nara, Japan
• Gil White MD, Milwaukee, WI, USA

All members of the Grants Review and Awards Committee will review the Letters of Intent and determine which candidates will be invited to submit full applications. Full applications will be reviewed by at least two members of the committee.

Reviewers will evaluate full applications according to the criteria outlined in the Awards section of this website. The reviewers will provide written comments and preliminary numeric scores according to these criteria.

The Committee will meet to discuss individual proposals including strengths, weaknesses and scoring. In this meeting, a consensus score for each grant application will be agreed upon. Proposals will then be ranked according to these scores in order to determine funding. In the event of identical scoring, the Committee will discuss the proposals in question and revise the scoring in order to clearly define a ranked priority. Funding will occur on a regional basis.

Three regions are defined as:

1. United States and Canada
2. Europe (for the purposes of this award, the Europe region includes Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom)
3. Japan, China, India, Australia and all other countries.

Awards will be determined on the final priority score as agreed by the Grants Review and Awards Committee. In the event that inadequate numbers of acceptable applications are received from a particular region, additional acceptable proposals will be funded solely on the basis of priority scores, without regard to region.

The Committee’s decision is final and there is no appeal mechanism. Applicants who have constructive suggestions about the review of their applications, or the process in general, are encouraged to contact us. See Contact.

Conflict of Interest

The Program has ‘conflict of interest’ guidelines that ensure reviews are conducted in a fair and equitable manner. Reviewers will not participate in the review or priority scoring of applications in which they, or institutions with which they are affiliated, have an interest. Also, to the extent practicable, reviewers will not participate in the review of proposals competing for funding with proposals for individuals associated with their institutions.

Confidentiality

The members of the Grants Review and Awards Committee are bound by the confidentiality rules generally applicable to such bodies.

Award Recipients: 2020

Fellowship Project Awards
	Pasquale Agosti Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Angelo Bianchi Bonomi Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center, and Fondazione Luigi Villa, Italy Minimum baseline FVIII levels required to prevent bleeding episodes: A study in mild haemophilia
	Stéphanie Désage Hemophilia Comprehensive Care Center, France FVIII-FXIII B fusion protein: a new strategy to improve the half-life of FVIII molecule
Basic Research Award
	Beth A. Bouchard University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, USA Megakaryocyte endocytosis and platelet delivery of a FV:FVIII chimera to treat hemophilia A
	Wenjing Cao University of Kansas Medical Center, USA Dissecting the Mechanism Underlying Factor VIII-Dependent Regulation of VWF Cleavage at the Single-Molecule Level
	Mirko Pinotti University of Ferrara, Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Italy Base Editing of DNA as a New Therapeutic Option for Haemophilia A
Clinical Research Award
	Roberta Gualtierotti Fondazione Luigi Villa, Italy Detection of novel biomarkers for hemophilic arthropathy via transcriptome analysis
	Nathalie Anne Roussel University of Antwerp, Belgium Exploring underlying mechanisms of joint pain in ageing hemophilia patients
	Ayse Zengin Monash University, Department of Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Australia The Haemophilia Osteoporosis Registry (THOR)

Past Award Recipients

• 2019 Awardees
• 2018 Awardees
• 2017 Awardees
• 2016 Awardees
• 2015 Awardees
• 2014 Awardees
• 2013 Awardees
• 2012 Awardees
• 2011 Awardees
• 2010 Awardees
• 2009 Awardees
• 2008 Awardees
• 2007 Awardees
• 2006 Awardees
• 2005 Awardees
• 2004 Awardees
• 2003 Awardees