The European Commission and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has signed an agreement on 'Biosimulation - A New Tool in Drug Development' under the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme for Research. Novo Nordisk will be the only pharmaceutical company to participate in the network set up as part of the project, together with approximately 100 scientists from all over Europe. The EU will support the project with 10.7 million euros over five years, according to a release from Novo Nordisk.

The aim of the project is to strengthen Europe's competitiveness within drug development by bringing together the leading European biosimulation experts in a scientific network. Coordinated by the DTU, the network will comprise 25 universities/research centres, nine small or medium-sized enterprises, the medicines agencies of Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, and Novo Nordisk.

"The Biosimulation Project is proof of the short distance that exists within advanced technologies between basic research and potential commercialisation. It is gratifying to see that research in Denmark, both at the universities and in the private business sector, is right at the forefront, and the project is an excellent example of optimum interaction between public and private research," says Lars Pallesen, rector of the DTU.

Biosimulation is a relatively new discipline, which uses many of the advanced methods of chaos research to describe and explore biological systems by means of computer models. Internationally, Copenhagen has for some time been in the lead with strong teams at the DTU and the University of Copenhagen, and Novo Nordisk has with increasing success applied the methods in drug development, the release added.

"The long-term perspectives of biosimulation are exciting. Today, we are primarily testing drugs in animals and humans. We hope that in the future biosimulation will enable us to develop drugs faster and cheaper while at the same time relatively reducing the number of experimental animals and human trials," says Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, chief science officer, Novo Nordisk.