Applicants

• PEF lead principal investigators (PIs) must be a member of a current Medicine by Design Cycle 2 project team. Cycle 2 co-PIs are eligible to lead PEF proposals.
• All investigators must have a faculty appointment at the University of Toronto.
• Applications must be directly linked to the primary aim of the Cycle 2 project.
• All funds are to be spent at the academic institution(s) except as noted under expert services.
• Note: Only two PEF applications per Cycle 2 project may be submitted in each submission round. Applicants may resubmit their proposal in a later round if they are not successful in their first submission. Resubmitted applications will be counted as one of the two allotted applications for each submission round.

Project stage

Intellectual Property

• The PEF supports projects for which intellectual property (IP) has been or is in the process of being filed at the technology transfer offices (TTO) of U of T or its affiliated hospitals.
• In exceptional cases, Medicine by Design may consider PEF applications for technologies that have not yet been disclosed; however, applicants are expected to engage with their TTO in conjunction with the preparation of a PEF application to demonstrate a clear plan for filing IP.

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

• Product concepts are expected to be at a TRL 3 (“Identification and Characterization of a Product Candidate”) as defined by the NIH TRL Scale (Refer to Appendix A: Technology Readiness Level Scale).
• Project plans are expected to advance product concepts to a TRL 4 (“Optimization and Initial Demonstration of Safety and Efficacy”) or higher.

Medicine by Design plans to run three PEF funding rounds, with submissions in March 2021, July 2021 and January 2022. Each round will commence with an Expression of Interest (EOI). Successful EOIs will be invited to submit full PEF proposals. Submission deadlines are listed in the table below.

For each funding round only two PEF proposals may be submitted by each Cycle 2 team. Applicants may re-submit their proposal in a later round if they are not successful in their first submission. Re-submitted applications will be counted as one of the two allotted applications for each submission round.

Review Process

PEF proposals will be reviewed by Medicine by Design’s Pivotal Experiment Fund Investment Committee.

Teams that are invited to submit a full proposal will also be required to deliver a 10-minute pitch presentation, followed by Q&A, to the Committee.

The planned dates for each funding round are outlined in the table below. Please note that these dates may be subject to change.