Avicenna, an Arabian physician and philosopher (980-1037), in his Canon of Medicine, first gave a formal structure to the process of evaluating the effect of a treatment on a disease. Since then, the fundamental nature of clinical trials has changed surprisingly little. The beginning of the 21st century, however, saw the birth of a completely new way to investigate living organisms through computer simulations, called in silico medicine. It is now time to explore systematically how computer simulations can be used to improve clinical trials of drugs, devices, and biotechnology products. We propose the development of a "coordination and support" action, named after the great physician Avicenna, which will establish, in the span of 24 months, a partnership between biomedical industries and European research organisations, with the purpose of developing the technology, methods, protocols, and standards required in order to make possible the use of computer simulations before real clinical trials. The aim of this will be to reduce the costs and the risks (both clinical and financial) involved in trials, and ultimately increase the rate of innovation in healthcare. This action will be designed around two fundamental assumptions:a) The primary users of in silico clinical trials technologies are the biomedical industries;b) The type of research required to develop the necessary technology, methods, protocols, and standards is pre-competitive in nature, and thus should facilitate multiple biomedical industries competing in the same market to collaborate around their development and use.