ONCODESIGN and Ipsen today announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership in oncology. Under this new agreement, Oncodesign will handle pre-clinical pharmacology for Ipsen’s oncology research programs. In addition, some of Oncodesign’s teams are moving to Ipsen’s largest R&D center at the Paris-Saclay hub, putting them at the heart of an ecosystem made up of research scientists, leading educational institutions, research facilities and cutting-edge industrial groups. For the past 20 years, Oncodesign and Ipsen have worked together on R&D projects based on a service and co-development relationship, before sealing a drug discovery partnership in 2012.

Claude Bertrand, Ipsen’s Executive Vice-President, R&D and Chief Scientific Officer, said: “Ipsen has decided to locate its three R&D centers at the heart of the world’s top competitiveness clusters in the life sciences industry (Paris-Saclay in France, Oxford in the United Kingdom, and Cambridge in the United States) to step up the pace of discovery of innovative new drugs.” Christophe Thurieau, Ipsen Innovation’s Senior Vice-President, Worldwide Scientific Affairs, added: “This partnership with Oncodesign fits perfectly with the development of Ipsen’s new R&D model, in which our Paris-Saclay platform will become a private open innovation campus. Oncodesign has renowned expertise in oncology, and we are delighted to have them join us at our Innovation Campus.”

“Oncodesign is honored to have been chosen as a key strategic partner of Ipsen. This is testimony to the innovative nature of the technologies we have been developing for several years”, stated Philippe Genne, CEO of Oncodesign. “Oncodesign has long been involved in the development of new economic and social models that meet the current and future challenges raised by innovation in the life sciences. Directly in keeping with our collective commitment within AFSSI¹ , we are proud to be able to play our part in accelerating the development of Ipsen’s private innovation campus in Paris-Saclay. This new concept aims to foster innovation by bringing together organizations with different cultures. Oncodesign will also gain access to new skills and expertise critical for the development of new therapies, including in pharmacology and the development of biomarkers.” 

Ipsen will use experimental models and new pharmacological approaches based on Oncodesign’s pharmaco-imaging and the detection of biomarkers. This new partnership represents a shift from a collaborative model that has already proven its value to a more extensive collaboration over a renewable 5-year term through the creation of a joint research team based both at Ipsen’s Les Ulis facility and Oncodesign’s facility in Dijon.

As part of this collaboration, Oncodesign will receive a minimum guaranteed annual fee to cover the cost of its research efforts at Les Ulis and of its Dijon platform, to which variable payments, linked to business volumes generated by Ipsen’s programs, may be added.

About Oncodesign: www.oncodesign.com

Founded over 20 years ago by Dr Philippe Genne, the Company’s CEO and Chairman, Oncodesign is a biotechnology company that maximises the pharmaceutical industry’s chances of success in discovering new therapeutic molecules to fight cancer and other serious illnesses with no known effective treatment. With its unique experience acquired by working with more than 500 clients, including the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, along with its comprehensive technological platform combining state-of-the-art medicinal chemistry, advanced animal modelling and medical imaging, Oncodesign is able to predict and identify, at a very early stage, each molecule’s therapeutic usefulness and potential to become an effective drug. Applied to kinase inhibitors, which represent a market estimated at over $40 billion in 2016 and accounting for almost 25% of the pharmaceutical industry’s R&D expenditure, Oncodesign’s technology has already enabled the targeting of several promising molecules with substantial therapeutic potential, in oncology and elsewhere, along with partnerships with pharmaceutical groups such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ipsen and UCB. Oncodesign is based in Dijon, France, in the heart of the town’s university and hospital hub. It has 103 employees and subsidiaries in Canada and the USA.