About the Program
In 2002, Bayer HealthCare instituted the Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program with the following mission:
The Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program supports basic and clinical research and education in hemophilia. Through grants provided to early career investigators, fellows in training, and other hemophilia care professionals, the program seeks to support the next steps for the next generation of care and treatment options for people with hemophilia worldwide.
Who We Are
The Bayer Group is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, nutrition and high-tech materials. Bayer HealthCare, a subgroup of Bayer AG, with annual sales of EUR 16,913 million (2010), is one of the world’s leading, innovative companies in the health care and medical products industry and is based in Leverkusen, Germany. The company combines the global activities of the Animal Health, Consumer Care, Medical Care and Pharmaceuticals divisions. Bayer HealthCare’s aim is to discover and manufacture products that will improve human and animal health worldwide. Bayer HealthCare has a global workforce of 53,400 employees and is represented in more than 100 countries.
Bayer envisions the Hemophilia Awards Program as a step toward making the dream of hemophilia cures and improved treatments a reality.
The Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program demonstrates our commitment to the global bleeding disorders community and to advancing the state of the art of hemophilia care.
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.
Dates & Deadlines
Thank you for your interest in applying for the Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program. This program represents Bayer’s continuing commitment to taking the next steps for the next generation of people with hemophilia to enjoy a better quality of life and treatment options.
Applications will be processed solely online and all applications must be submitted in English.
As a first step, applicants should submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) describing the proposed project in 500 words or fewer. People who submit LOIs will receive an email confirming receipt.
LOIs will be reviewed by all 10 members of the Grants Review and Awards Committee and, in some cases, additional information may be requested.
Selected applicants will be invited to submit a Full Proposal that will be reviewed by at least two members of the Grants Review and Awards Committee. These applicants will be emailed a Full Proposal application form.
The results of the review process and funding decisions for the 2020/2021 cycle will be communicated to applicants in April. Funded applicants must send a letter of acceptance and enter into an agreement outlining obligations and understandings prior to disbursement of funds.
Awardees will be invited to attend an Awards Dinner that will coincide with the biennial meetings of the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) or the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH).
The table below summarizes the application timelines for 2020/2021.
Action |
Date |
LOI submissions |
Permitted throughout the year |
Deadline for LOI consideration |
November 30, 2020 |
GRAC reviews LOIs |
December 2020 |
GRAC informs applicants |
January 2021 |
Applicants develop Full Proposals |
January/February 2021 |
Full Proposals submitted |
February 2021 |
GRAC reviews Full Proposals |
March 2021 |
Applicants notified of GRAC decisions |
April 2021 |
Funding available |
July/August 2021 |
GRAC, Grants Review and Awards Committee.
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:
- United States and Canada
- 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)
- 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