PLACEBO was initiated as a partnership between CeMM and seven other Austrian research groups, funded under the Gen-AU program of the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research. The project has developed into a long-term initiative open to the wider scientific community on a collaborative basis. 

PLACEBO provides researchers in Austria with access to chemical biology resources including a 92,000 compound library, high-throughput and high-content screening to identify and characterize small molecules that affect new targets for studying biological processes and developing new drugs.