The 2008-2009 CQDM competition on \u00ab Drug Efficacy \u00bb has been extremely successful with 78 letters of intent received, all with a high level of scientific interest. Given the fact that CQDM will only be able to finance a few projects this year, only those best fitting the priorities of the 2008-2009 competition have been preselected. Our selection committee (the CQDM\u2019s Strategic Orientation Committee less 2 members who have been replaced to avoid potential conflicts of interest) has carefully examined the projects using a very strict evaluation grid which takes into account all the criteria listed on our call for proposals. A priority has however been given to the applicability to the pharmaceutical industry with a specific focus on the major drug discovery challenges. In addition, the innovative aspects of the projects and their capacity to produce tangible deliverables with a direct impact on drug discovery have been very important for the evaluation of the letters of intent. We have also given a special attention to multidisciplinary projects involving a solid inter-institutional collaboration or a concrete partnership between the academic milieu and private companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n