FIGON National technology platform drug discovery

The ambition evolved at FIGON to develop a Dutch drug discovery technology platform which is based on a national and certainly also international requirement to achieve new, safer medication that can be developed more rapidly than usual.

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The question

The FIGON board of directors, the Dutch Federation for Innovative Medicine Research, approached InnoTact to support the process that was to result in the new platform.

What InnoTact did

We charted the key bottlenecks that Dutch parties encountered in the development of new medicines during the first phase of this project, in close cooperation with the members of FIGON, the major Dutch research school in the field of medicine development. The insights achieved from this formed scientific and also social-economic challenges for the new platform.

By elaborating on these insights further in an international context, thus also by examining the relationships with the European framework programme; by studying the international competitive position and by charting strengths and shortcomings in the Netherlands, we were in a position to jointly work towards a clear overall image of a new platform. We reached concrete and fully supported objectives, challenges and measurable deliverables, and also an organisational structure and control model. We also developed procedures, also for technology transfer, and we made joint agreements about intellectual property and dissemination of knowledge. It goes without saying that there was significant focus on the phased set up and the corresponding cost development.

The result

The ultimate result was a detailed plan for a new ‘National Technology Platform for re-engineering Drug Discovery’, where the focus will be on the more rapid development of more and safer ‘clinical candidates’. The focus of the platform would be illness models/monitoring of illnesses on the one hand and on ‘lead selection’ on the other hand, which is all covered by the broader subject of vascular diseases, psychiatric and immunological disorder and infectious diseases. In the end, the plan was rejected for financing by the BSIK (Ruling subsidies investments knowledge infrastructure). However, the foundations of the platform were formed, which would be developed into the Dutch Top Institute Pharma at a later stage.

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