Nordic Life Science 1
”A UNI VERSITY LI VES BY SHARING KNOWLEDGE AND GO
OD IDEAS, AND ODIN’S OPEN FORMAT PROV IDES THE BASIS FOR BOTH RESEARCHERS AND COMPANIES TO DO JUST THAT. I AM THEREFORE SURE THAT ODIN WILL BENEFIT THE PARTICIPANTS – AND ULTIMATELY – DENMARK.” BR I A N B E CH N I E L S E N , R E C TO R, A A R HU S UN I V E R S I T Y Brian Bech Nielsen, Rector, Aarhus University HE ODIN PROJECT is a pilot project that will be a free space for the next three years. Without the restrictive framework of patents, ODIN will boost and use the collective thinking and creativity of the participating university researchers and nine pharmaceutical and biotech companies, enabling them to refine ideas and accelerate projects. All participants are free to offer solutions or ideas to qualify projects. Participation is voluntary, so only projects that appeal to both parties take off. Once this happens, a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) will fund research capacity in the form of employing postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and others. A NNF grant of 54.5 million DKK will fund the ODIN secretariat and Aarhus University’s part of the research projects. The overall ambition is to create accelerated and more effective discovery of new pharmaceuticals by having a strong foundation of basic knowledge and analytical tools that everyone can access, including competing companies, states the collaborators. “A university lives by sharing knowledge and good ideas, and ODIN’s open format provides the basis for both researchers and companies to do just that. I am therefore sure that ODIN will benefit the participants – and ultimately Denmark,” says Brian Bech Nielsen, Rector, Aarhus University. The ODIN network currently comprises researchers from the natural, technical and health sciences faculties at at Aarhus University as well as industry partners, including Novo Nordisk, LEO Pharma, Lundbeck, Boehringer Ingelheim and Nordic Bioscience. NLS PHOTO JESPER RAIS/AU KOMMUNIKATION PHOTO LARS KRUSE/AU KOMMUNIKATION