Accelerate the discovery of new drugs. This is the objective of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), which announced the establishment of a European public-private partnership system, the 'European Lead Factory' precisely to facilitate the arrival of innovative products on the old continent market. The project foresees a platform composed of a complete collection of data on approximately 500,000 drug candidates (the Joint European Compound Collection) and a European screening center (European Screening Centre). The pharmaceutical companies involved in the project have pledged to contribute at least 300,000 chemical compounds from their otherwise secret archives. Academic centers and small and medium-sized enterprises will have access to this unique library of chemicals, and will add approximately 200,000 more. The screening center will base its activity on 'high-throughput screening', a method by which robots can test hundreds of thousands of chemicals. The total budget for the project is 169 million euros. Up to €80 million will be provided by the European Commission's 7th Framework Program for research and the remaining amount (€89 million) will be provided by the participating companies, members of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
Barbara Di Chiara – March 9, 2012 – PharmaKronos
