Video: New European project aims to speed drug research

Declan Murphy talks to SFARI.org about a new European project intended to stimulate development of autism drugs.

By Virginia Hughes

13 November 2011 | 1 min read

This article is more than five years old.

Neuroscience—and science in general—is constantly evolving, so older articles may contain information or theories that have been reevaluated since their original publication date.

As every researcher knows, there is a wide chasm between basic scientists and pharmaceutical companies, and it’s at least in part the reason for the dearth of innovative drugs for disorders such as autism.

In late 2007, the European Commission and the pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA launched a public-private program aimed at closing this gap. The so-called Innovative Medicines Initiative has a €2 billion budget to support shared research projects between academia and private companies.

Declan Murphy, head of forensic and neurodevelopmental sciences at King’s College London, is the academic lead of one new part of the initiative focused on autism, called the European Union Autism Innovative Medicine Initiative, or EU-AIMS.

Murphy talked to SFARI.org about the project over a lunch break Wednesday at the Cell Symposia: Autism Spectrum Disorders: From Mechanisms to Therapies in Washington, D.C., a satellite conference of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.