Pharma-NL application submitted to National Growth Fund
The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) submitted Pharma-NL to the R&D program of the National Growth Fund, a 20 billion euro program of the Dutch government that intends to create long-term economic growth in The Netherlands.
Pharma-NL was developed by a consortium of Leiden University/Leiden University Medical Center, Campus Groningen/Life Cooperative, and Pivot Park, in close collaboration with FAST, the VWS and EZK initiative to accelerate the transfer of therapies from lab to patient. We designed Pharma-NL as a national platform to accelerate the discovery, development, and production of therapeutics in the Netherlands. More than 25 academic institutions, medical centers and companies are actively participating in Pharma-NL.
Pharma-NL intends to bridge the extended valley-of-death that early-stage drug products face, i.e, the time between a basic science discovery (usually in academic labs) and the commitment of significant financialresources to develop an idea into a drug or drug or drug producing technology. The second focus lies on the increase in production of pharmaceuticals in The Netherlands. Pharma-NL intends to offer coherent financial and operational support, and to strengthen the innovation environment within the Dutch pharmaceutical value chain. Our focus also lies on the shared R&D infrastructure, incubator facilities, ready-to-go locations for the exploitation of R&D and innovation results and pharmaceutical human capital. Pharma-NL is based on an open-call structure and serves the entire pharma and biotech community of The Netherlands.