QPS NETHERLANDS BV

Their core work

QPS Netherlands is a preclinical contract research organization based in Groningen, specializing in in vivo disease models, biomarker assays, and pathology/physiology readouts used in drug discovery. They provide the experimental backbone that pharma companies and academic consortia need to move candidate compounds from the bench toward clinical trials. Their work in H2020 concentrates on translational research for hard disease areas — autophagy-related pathologies and tuberculosis — where rigorous animal models and standardized assays are the bottleneck. In practical terms, if a consortium has a drug candidate, QPS runs the preclinical package that tells you whether it actually works.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

They are moving from broad translational biology toward concrete late-preclinical drug development work, which makes them increasingly attractive for consortia that have an actual candidate compound rather than an early-stage hypothesis.

How they like to work

QPS joins large consortia as a specialist partner rather than coordinating — both H2020 projects were participant roles, and ERA4TB alone accounts for most of their 69 unique partners across 16 countries. This pattern is typical of contract research organizations: they plug into big pharma-academic alliances to deliver a defined preclinical work package. Partnering with them is straightforward if your consortium needs in vivo and biomarker work done to industry standards.

They have collaborated with 69 unique partners across 16 countries, with the bulk of that network coming through the large ERA4TB tuberculosis consortium. Reach is clearly pan-European, with exposure to global pharma partners via the TB regimen effort.

What sets them apart

Unlike academic labs that dominate most H2020 health consortia, QPS brings industry-grade contract research capacity — standardized in vivo models, regulatory-aware assay work, and the capacity to scale preclinical packages. Compared to other Dutch participants, they are not a university group but a commercial CRO embedded in EU consortia, which makes them useful when a project needs work done on deadlines rather than discoveries made. If you have a compound that needs real animal data and validated biomarkers, they are built for that step.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ERA4TB
  EUR 5.14M participation in one of Europe's flagship anti-tuberculosis drug development consortia, a pan-TB regimen accelerator involving 69 partners across 16 countries.
• DRIVE
  MSCA-ITN training network on autophagy translation, giving QPS a role in shaping the next generation of translational researchers from the industry side.