The Novo Nordisk Foundation has awarded a five-year grant of up to DKK 50 million to be shared between a consortium including Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences (LML) at the University of Cambridge, CeBIL at the University of Copenhagen, the Petrie Flom Centre at Harvard, and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The partners will deliver the Inter-CeBIL providing insights, knowledge and tools that contribute a successful, competitive and sustainable life science innovation ecosystem. This follows the success of the previous grant (known as 'CeBIL'), which ran for five years from 2018.
Inter-CeBIL's development has been led by grant holder and principal investigator Professor Timo Minssen, an LML Research Affiliate and Founding Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL) at the University of Copenhagen. He says:
"The CeBIL Programme has been a great success: we have engaged with industry, public bodies and legislators, influenced policy, and published a significant number of research papers in top legal and scientific journals,"
Looking to the future, Professor Minssen added, "With Inter-CeBIL, we now want to build on what we have learnt and shift from this very high-level impact to more applied and tangible effects at the ground level. I feel very humbled and grateful for the continuous trust in our scientifically independent research, and the generous financial support that the Novo Nordisk Foundation has granted us. I also want to express my most heartfelt gratitude for our splendid teamwork with all our CeBIL partners and the support that I received from our Faculty."
The Inter-CeBIL Programme will bring together scholars from the world’s leading research institutions. It will focus on legal issues in three key areas:
- Advanced Medical Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Technologies (QT)
- Pandemic Preparedness and Anti‐Microbial Resistance (AMR)
- Sustainable Innovation and Biosolutions
Contributions to Inter-CeBIL in Cambridge will be led by Professor Kathy Liddell, Director of LML, and Professor Mateo Aboy, a Director of Research. Professor Liddell remarked:
"LML is delighted to continue this collaboration. It has produced substantial research over the past five years, with plenty of policy impact. This is certain to continue. In Cambridge, we’re looking forward to developing our work on regulation and legal incentives for advanced computing and AI in medicine, repurposing medicines, and tackling antimicrobial resistance ."
The Novo Nordisk Foundation’s announcement can be found on their website.