Curie-Cancer, the body that leads the Institut Curie's industry partner research activity, and Servier, an independent French pharmaceutical research company, have renewed their partnership with the aim of identifying therapeutic targets for treating triple negative breast cancers. The partnership will continue for three more years.

Triple negative breast cancers account for 15% of breast cancer cases. They are particularly aggressive and can be unresponsive to the current chemotherapy regimens, so there is an urgent need to find new therapies. Triple negative breast cancers do not express estrogen or progesterone receptors (in which case they could be treated with hormone therapy), or Her-2 receptors (which would allow for targeted therapies that bind to Her-2 receptors).

The partners will share the intellectual property resulting from this work.

“Cancer is a key focus of research for Servier,” said Emmanuel Canet, president of R&D at Servier. “Servier's research strategy includes developing research partnerships with the leading academic teams. Our long-term partnership with the Institut Curie symbolizes our ability to work effectively and cohesively with the best teams in the world.”

“Our partnership with the Institut Curie has already helped us to identify a potential therapeutic target, kinase TTK/MPS1, an enzyme involved in cell cycle regulation,” said Pascal Touchon, Servier's director of scientific collaboration.

“Our decision to extend the partnership for three years was inspired by these highly encouraging results, the need to look at the other results obtained in more depth and the desire to explore other potential leads,” said Emmanuel Canet.

“The Institut Curie is pleased with the terms of this long-term partnership, where there is a genuine division of labor. The intellectual property also is evenly split, meaning that if the work in hand results in an innovative medicinal product, the Institut Curie will receive royalties that it can reinvest in new research,” said Damien Salauze, director of Curie-Cancer.