Today the Institute for Research in Biomedicine and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center unveiled Nostrum BioDiscovery, a new biotech company that applies computational simulation to help new drugs and biotech molecules to reach the market.
There are no easy drugs left to be discovered,” said Modesto Orozco, IRB Barcelona researcher, full professor of the University of Barcelona and president of Nostrum BioDiscovery. “The number of drugs being launched each year is falling and these are incredibly expensive. Computational simulation cannot perform miracles, but it can significantly reduce the drug development process by increasing therapeutic strength, which has a positive effect on the entire development process.”
Nostrum BioDiscovery will significantly speed up and increase the accuracy of the studies done prior to the commercialization of pharmaceuticals and biotechnological products. The company specializes in cutting-edge informatics tools, computing power, and research of excellence. The services provided by Nostrum BioDiscovery could imply savings equivalent to about 40 million euros per new pharmaceutical product; this figure corresponds to between 15 and 20% less expense in the initial development phase, which involves an estimated investment of around 300 million euros.
The company has come about in the context of a transformation of the pharmaceutical industry business model, which is moving from drug discovery “in-house” to a model that involves partially subcontracting research and development. “The quality of our technologies and the expertise of the team make us a valid and reliable option for companies that want to speed up the initial stages of drug design and to gain efficiency,” comments Víctor Guallar, a scientist at the BSC-CNS, co-leader of the project, and also director of the Scientific Advisory Board of Nostrum BioDiscovery.
Through its Mind the Gap Programme, the Botín Foundation seeks to bridge the gap between science and the company to ensure that “highly innovative and viable research reaches the market and eventually benefits patients,” explained Íñigo Sáez de Miera, director general of the foundation, during the presentation of the Nostrum BioDiscovery.
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