On July 4, the Institut Curie, France’s leading cancer center, announced the signing of a five-year strategic framework agreement with Janssen France, a Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company. Johnson & Johnson Innovation supports this partnership, which aims to accelerate innovation in oncology.

The Institut Curie combines an internationally renowned research center with a state-of-the-art hospital complex that treats all cancers, including the rarest. Founded in 1909 by Marie Curie, the institute today brings together more than 3,700 researchers, physicians and caregivers around its three missions: care, research and teaching.

As a private foundation recognized as being in the public interest and authorized to receive donations and legacies, the Institut Curie can, thanks to the support of its donors, invest in R&D and thus improve the quality of life of patients.

In 2011, the Ministry of Research awarded the Institut Curie the Carnot label, recognizing its involvement in partnership research.

The strategic framework agreement with Janssen

The cooperation between Janssen and the Institut Curie is not new. For example, in 2018, the Janssen Horizon fund provided financial support for two projects presented by Institut Curie physical therapists.

Today, two research projects are being conducted by a multidisciplinary team from the Institut Curie, in collaboration with Janssen data scientists and oncology researchers, focusing on the study of experimental treatments for lymphoma and solid tumors.

The framework agreement aims to formalize this collaboration and is based on two axes:

• Strengthening existing multi-disease research and clinical collaborations by leveraging the power of data science, AI and new technologies such as single cell sequencing.
• Framing discussions around new research collaborations and their future operational implementation in specific areas of common interest: in immuno-oncology, care pathway support, radiation therapy, or data and precision medicine.

Steven Le Gouill, director of the Institut Curie Hospital Complex, and Alain Puisieux, director of the Institut Curie Research Center, state:

“We are delighted with the signing of this major framework agreement with Janssen France, which is part of our ongoing commitment to collaborate and develop innovation in oncology. Through this collective work, which will bring together the complementary expertise of the teams at the hospital complex and the research center, which are the very essence of the Institut Curie, we will take another step towards concrete and innovative therapeutic solutions for patients. Moreover, in an increasingly competitive global environment, this agreement will strengthen France’s influence and attractiveness in medical research.

Research project to develop advanced immunotherapies for solid tumors

Of the two projects underway, one concerns the treatment of solid tumors and aims to develop new immunotherapies. Planned for two years, it should foster the identification of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets by applying new data science approaches to multimodal data. The data will cover new high-resolution platforms (such as single cell sequencing) with complete patient records.

Dr. Manuel Rodrigues, medical oncologist and researcher at Institut Curie, and Sergio Roman-Roman, head of the Translational Research Department at Institut Curie, principal investigators of the project, assure:

“Despite the many therapeutic advances of recent years, many cancers are still associated with an unfavorable prognosis. It is therefore more necessary than ever to develop new and more effective therapeutic approaches. The ambition of this project is to work with Janssen to accelerate the development of innovative treatments to fight these cancers.”

This cross-functional and interdisciplinary project relies on the expertise of the teams at the research center and the hospital complex, as well as state-of-the-art technological platforms (proteomic mass spectrometry, high-throughput DNA sequencing and cytometry), but also on innovative analysis techniques developed by specialists from both partners.

Cécile Campagne, Director of Valorization and Industrial Partnerships at the Institut Curie and Deputy Director of Carnot Curie Cancer, concludes:

“Signing a framework agreement of this magnitude with Janssen is of strategic importance for the Institut Curie, which has held the Carnot label of excellence for ten years now. On the one hand, this formalization will contribute to the durability and structuring of our already established relationships with Janssen teams in the context of ongoing collaborations. But above all, this signature will accelerate the initiation of ambitious research projects to improve our understanding of cancers and develop tomorrow’s therapeutic innovations together.

Translated from L’Institut Curie et Janssen France partenaires dans la lutte contre le cancer