[January 29, 2007, Copenhagen and Shanghai] On Friday, 8 December, 2006, the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Copenhagen (FARMA), the Danish Biotech Research and Innovation Centre (BRIC) - an independent research centre under the University of Copenhagen, and the Chinese National Center for Drug Screening (NCDS) – an independent research organization affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences signed a research collaboration agreement. The contract sets out the framework for research and development cooperation between these three institutions which have complementary expertises in biotechnology, life sciences pharmaceutical development. They will jointly form an extremely strong triumvirate with comprehensive capabilities in drug discovery.

FARMA offers expertise in medicinal chemistry – primarily the identification of potential new drugs and the characterisation of their physical-chemical properties. BRIC’s contribution is pinpointing possible biological mechanisms underlying diseases and validating them as targets for drug discovery. NCDS in Shanghai commands extensive technical ability for developing biological assays, screening bioactivities of compounds and elucidating their potential as drug candidates.

“We see great prospect in the cooperation. FARMA is focused on producing new active compounds, BRIC characterises the biological mechanisms involved and NCDS tests their activities. Research projects will arise at all three places and be carried out in a coordinated manner. We are complementary between each other, which greatly increases the possibility to find new drugs”, said Ulf Madsen, head of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry.

Kristian Helin, director of BRIC adds: “the cooperative agreement is very important to BRIC. Our research is directed towards the understanding of causes of various diseases. In the process we identify new targets for drug discovery. This collaboration will certainly strengthen our quest of developing new therapeutics for cancer and other widespread diseases.”

“We are delighted to forge such an international partnership among the three non-profit institutions located in China and Denmark, respectively. By combined efforts, we will be able to maximize the expertise of each party and significantly improve the efficiency of our research activities,” commented Ming-Wei Wang, director of NCDS.

Prof. Sven Frøkjær, dean of FARMA, Dr. Peter Høngaard Andersen, chairman of the board of directors af BRIC, Prof. Jian Ding, director of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, and other members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Delegation attended the agreement signing ceremony.