Joint compound screening centre to boost drug discovery

A group of 30 organisations, both publicly funded and from industry, has launched a €196-million drug-discovery project based on a shared collection of potential medical compounds. The five-year project includes the creation of a Joint European Compound Collection and a European Screening Centre, based in the Netherlands and the UK. Seven large drug companies will contribute at least 300,000 compounds from their corporate chemical collections. Some 13 academic organisations and 10 small businesses will add 200,000 molecules to the pool.