CiMUS spearheads the Innopharma platform to drive drug discovery and development

Mabel Loza and Ángel Carracedo, researchers at CiMUS, a member of the CIGUS Network, an initiative launched by the regional government (Xunta de Galicia) that groups  together centres of proven scientific excellence within the Galician university system, are leading the Innopharma drug discovery platform from their research centre. The aim of this project is to boost Galicia’s capacity for drug discovery and development, as well as driving its international competitiveness.  

“Thanks to this funding, the Innopharma Platform will be able to continue to meet its objective of ensuring that new drugs reach patients, offering biomedical research groups within the Galician University System, medical research institutes and the scientific community in general its support in generating health-related products and services”, explained Mabel Loza, one of the researchers spearheading this platform from CiMUS. This milestone achievement has been made possible through the allocation of five million euros by the regional government’s Galician Innovation Agency over the last three years through the REACT-EU Fund within the Galicia ERDF Operational Programme 2014-2020.

Boosting sector competitiveness

In addition to supporting biomedical research teams from Galician universities and health research institutes in the creation of health-oriented products and services, Innopharma seeks to attract the interest of tractor companies and new professionals to generate skilled employment, thereby increasing the sector’s competitiveness. This platform currently consists of a high-performance infrastructure for drug screening, with highly specialised professionals, and a collection of 60,000 molecules for the development of projects in this field. Its capacities have led to agreements with dozens of research centres and companies around the world.