“Cancer is 20 million cases worldwide each year, and 10 million deaths. An A380 plane with 400 people crashing every twenty minutes.” Professor Fabrice Barlesi, General Manager of Gustave Roussy de Villejuif, does not hesitate to illustrate the challenges of the fight against cancer, believing that treatments are within reach.
“First, there is the challenge of evaluation. Characterize the tumour, its environment, the organism in which it occurs. Identify the biological driving force behind the disease in order to control it. It is then necessary to be able to access these therapeutic strategies within a reasonable time and at an affordable cost.“, poses this specialist in lung cancer and immunology. However, today, France is far from the mark, with only 7% of cancer patients participating in clinical trials for 75% of volunteers.
Bringing together cutting-edge research, laboratories and healthcare centers around the fight against cancer, such is the challenge of the Paris Saclay Cancer Cluster (PSCC), created a year ago by Sanofi, Gustave Roussy, Inserm , the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and the University of Paris-Saclay, with the aim of bringing together 200 members by 2027. Several organizations are already involved, such as Unicancer, Institut Curie, the Public Hospitals of Paris – AP-HP and laboratories such as Servier, Novartis, Pierre Fabre, AMGEN, IPSEN, Innate Pharma… A cluster promoted to a bright future since it was selected as the first winner of the State’s call for expressions of interest to set up bioclusters on a global scale, with nearly 100 million euros up for grabs, not counting contributions from partners. While several health and biotech players are already established, or in the process of doing so, in the new buildings built near the Gustave Roussy center, Fort de la Redoute, State land that has long remained in abeyance, has has also been selected to house part of the new pole, once it has been cleaned up.
In terms of accessibility, the site will be connected to the metro from 2025 with the arrival of line 15 south of the Grand Paris Express.
What put on track a powerful cluster, which aims to compete with Kendall Square, in the United States. Located in the suburbs of Boston, this industrial wasteland has been transformed in the space of thirty years into a high-performance oncology cluster. A third of the anti-cancer treatments used in the world today were developed in this crossroads bringing together major universities (MIT and Harvard), hospitals (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and more than 200 biotechnology companies, all served by the metro… For the English-speaking decision-makers of the Villejuif biocluster, Boston is thus “the” reference.
One-stop shop
In concrete terms, the PSCC will take the form of a window that entrepreneurs will be able to request, in particular to gain easier access to researchers. “Young biotechs arrive and develop pre-clinical trials. We will have project managers at Gustave-Roussy who will be able to anticipate the patients to be targeted first during the first clinical trials”, explains Professor Benjamin Besse, oncologist at Gustave Roussy. Start-ups will thus be able to save up to two years in the development of their treatment.
Paris Saclay Cancer Cluster will also facilitate access to financing for companies
Data processing: a crucial issue
In addition, the PSCC will invest 30 million euros to enable hospitals to structure their data, make it interoperable and make it available to academic researchers and private companies. “Access to deep hospital data is essential for innovation against cancer, firstly because we will be able to cross-reference sources (high-level imaging, examination reports, etc.). They must also be compared with statistical references from very large cohorts. This is an issue with a major impact in the chain of patient care, from screening to diagnosis through follow-up. We will thus be able to better understand the great heterogeneity of cancers and the extremely complex underlying mechanisms. Much research today exploits this deep data to understand how to fight against therapy failures, the development of resistance or toxicity.“, explains Professor Elsa Angelini, researcher at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris. Ultimately, this data offer will make it possible to target populations using biological samples. “To better characterize the cohorts of patients that we select from our hospital records, we will be able to access these biological samples. Thanks to the PSCC, we will make available a collection of samples resulting from research, annotated and easily exhibitable through an interface. In a second step, the collections resulting from the care will be integrated into it“, adds Anne-Laure Martin, director of data at Unicancer, the federation of centers for the fight against cancer.
Platforms for creating drugs
The data offer will be supplemented by a scientific offer materialized by about fifteen clinical research platforms. The PSCC will notably support the BOPA chair of Professor Eric Vibert, surgeon at the hepato-biliary center of the Paul-Brousse hospital (AP-HP) on the future of the operating room. “We will be supported on a surgical tele-expertise project to bring patients into trials related to liver and pancreatic cancers, specifies the latter. Another project concerns fluorescence-guided surgery: the PSCC will help us develop new fluorophores to increase the precision of pancreatic surgery. Another project also concerns the development of a normothermic perfusion platform to place organs with cancers on machines and develop new drugs.”
Beyond Villeuif, the Curie Institute will create, on its Saint-Cloud site, a platform of around 600 square meters with laboratories including all the cutting-edge cell therapy technologies. “As much as France is a major prescriber of marketed cell therapies, France’s place in clinical research in this field is low. By mobilizing technological expertise ranging from discovery to clinical trials, including cell engineering, vitro and vivo proof of concept, we will be able to support biotechs or other industrial partners in innovation and improving these treatments for patients”promises Dr. Marion Alcantara.
Unanimous political support
On Friday February 3, the ministers of health, industry and higher education all three came to bring this pole to the baptismal font. “Now when we talk about biocluster, we are talking about Boston, but also Saclay. For several months, your biocluster has already been mentioned by a certain number of international investors who plan to settle in France. You will help us to help settle the Bermuda triangle of health policy. We must treat patients at a reasonable cost, trying more and more, for economic and sovereignty reasons, to reindustrialize France“, commented Roland Lescure, Minister of Industry.
Pierre Garzon, the PCF mayor of Villejuif, also welcomed the realization of Paris Saclay Cancer Cluster while affirming the identity of his municipality, detaching himself from the parallel with the east coast. “I think it’s safe to say that we’re not exactly in Boston’s situation. We are in a fabric where the constructions, the production of jobs, housing, equipment, will feed a population already on the spot. I am thinking in particular of urban renewal operations (…) The time saved by these anticipated steps should not be wasted, it is important that the mobilization of the land of Fort de la Redoute is finalized so that the land is completely cleared and sold”a insisted the elected, while the mountain of waste left by the illegal dump on the fort of La Redoute awaits its operational phase of depollution.
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