A project group for translational medicine and pharmacology (TMP) was already set up at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Frankfurt/Main in 2012 as part of the Hesse LOEWE programme. The LOEWE Centre was designed to particularly support the Fraunhofer Institute in the field of research and development for drugs and has therefore gained a high level of expertise in the fields of research involving the search for active substances, pharmaceutical technology, highly differentiated and indication-specific pharmacological models and clinical research. LOEWE-TMP was transformed into an independent Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology ITMP on 1 January 2021.

Professor Dr Gerd Geisslinger, the spokesperson for the TMP LOEWE Centre, the Managing Head of the Fraunhofer IME Institute and the future Head of the Fraunhofer ITMP Institute, expressed his gratitude to the LOEWE programme. “Our aspiration at the new Fraunhofer Institute is to translate the highly promising ideas arising from pure biomedical research into their use for the benefit of patients and society. I’m very grateful to the Hesse state government for the LOEWE programme, for without this programme, this new institute wouldn’t exist at all. Thanks to the funding for the LOEWE TMP Centre and the excellence of Fraunhofer in application-oriented research, we’ve been able to create the structures for effective biomedical research at the sites in Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg and Göttingen, which now form the basis for the new institute.”

Hesse State Premier Volker Bouffier is also convinced. “The transformation of the LOEWE Centre TMP into an independent Fraunhofer Institute is the well-earnt recognition of scientific excellence and a further strengthening of Hesse as an academic centre. This success was also only possible because of the unique LOEWE academic funding programme that’s available in Hesse.”