The Department of Pharmacy of University of Naples Federico II and other 17 EU top organizations from 7 Countries are collaborating within "Exscalate4CoV" (E4C; https://www.exscalate4cov.eu/), the first project funded by H2020 program to fight the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. E4C project aims to identify immediately new antiviral agents against SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19 pandemic.  More importantly, a new platform will be created to be ready to face future pandemics. E4C platform integrates in the same consortium diverse disciplines to implement modern drug discovery strategies/technologies, such as computational ultra-fast virtual screening of 500 billion compound libraries, modern medicinal chemistry, design and synthesis of new inhibitors, and a cascade of automated antiviral biochemical and phenotypic screening, corroborated by in vitro and in vivo analyses. The final goal is to identify both a repurposed drug for immediate use and preclinical candidates to be developed.