ScreeningPort fills a missing link in Europe between academic research and the pharmaceutical industry, to accelerate development of new therapeutics from the results of basic research
Hamburg is on its way to becoming a leading hub of Europe's academic drug discovery, with the northern German city's town hall announcing the foundation of European ScreeningPort , a company that will run a state-of-the-art drug discovery service centre.
European ScreeningPort is being established with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Evotec, and Norgenta, the north German life science agency.
Although still in an early phase, the project has already raised more than euro7million in financing.
Hamburg's new European ScreeningPort will build upon research results generated in academia.
It will enable a more systematic and efficient search for promising new compounds which can subsequently be further developed.
Both Evotec and the City of Hamburg have invested into the newly founded company, which will be run as a public private partnership.
This novel concept in advancing drug discovery will also be supported with considerable funds from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
ScreeningPort will act as a service provider that enables academic research institutes to access its state-of-the-art technology, its vast amount of chemical compounds as well as its sample and data processing capabilities.
New therapeutic concepts developed at universities can, in future, undergo the same standardised, more efficient and thus more cost-effective development processes that have, until now, been available only to industry.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies, for their part, can benefit from the research results generated at ScreeningPort and thus complement their own drug research.
ScreeningPort is planned to be at the heart of an international network.
Although it is still at an early stage, a number of European research institutes have already been tied in.
Among others, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and the Vienna-based Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have signed letters of intent.
The ScreeningPort project was initiated by Evotec, a drug discovery and development company, and implemented by Norgenta , the north German life science agency that promotes the structural development of life sciences in the federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
