PharmaNL - Shared Development Infrastructure

An innovative infrastructure is needed for the development of breakthrough pharmaceutical product and production technologies. Currently, the required R&D facilities and services to achieve this are not or insufficiently available and will not emerge under regular market forces. The public funding within this programme is intended for companies as well as research and knowledge institutions that aim to set up and/or upgrade a shared pharmaceutical infrastructure.

The pharmaceutical industry is growing rapidly worldwide and provides high added value to the economy. The Netherlands has a strongly developed pharmaceutical value chain with world-class scientific expertise. However, the economic potential of the Dutch pharmaceutical industry remains greatly underutilized because a number of requirements for successful lab-to-life value creation are insufficiently developed. One of the missing requirements is the availability of innovative infrastructure, such as laboratory equipment. An integral approach is therefore needed to address the structural market failure that currently prevents the Dutch pharmaceutical value chain from realizing its full economic and societal potential.

The PharmaNL SDI programme provides the framework for the careful distribution of resources made available by the National Growth Fund (NGF). The NGF was created to provide financial resources that increase the long-term sustainable earning capacity of the Netherlands by making investments in the various fields. PharmaNL is 1 of the projects that was awarded funding by the NGF. The funding aims to ensure nationally coordinated expansion and strengthening of the available infrastructure for pharmaceutical development and production technology innovations. This will expand and strengthen the available shared development infrastructure in pharmaceutical hubs, knowledge institutions and companies with future-proof equipment. This in turn leads to efficient and effective development of new drugs and production technologies, shorter lab-to-life lead times and lower costs for research groups and (start-up) companies. This also improves the competitive strength of the Dutch pharmaceutical sector in the development of new drugs.

PharmaNL is an initiative by and for the Dutch pharmaceutical sector, supported by a national public-private consortium consisting of:

• Pivot Park
• Leiden University
• Campus Groningen