Germany Will Launch Drug Discovery Hub

The German city of Hamburg is establishing European ScreeningPort, a drug discovery service hub designed to provide the missing link in Europe between academic research and the pharmaceutical industry. The new company is being established with the support of Germany's Federal Ministry of Education & Research, the city of Hamburg, pharmaceutical services company Evotec, and Norgenta, an agency that promotes life sciences development in the German states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The center has raised nearly $10 million in financing, including $2 million each from Evotec and Hamburg, and aims to be fully operating by mid-2009. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Vienna-based Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have said they intend to participate.