Oncology: a partnership-based approach to innovation with Francesco Hofmann
Oncology: a partnership-based approach to innovation with Francesco Hofmann
Pierre Fabre Laboratories has adopted a partnership-based approach to accelerate the development of targeted therapies in oncology.
“Partnerships provide a real boost to our work in precision oncology.”
Why work with partners in oncology?
Research and development of new cancer treatments is a long, complex and expensive process. Through partnerships, we can significantly scale up our efforts in precision oncology.
As a mid-sized company, we must be strategic in our choices and the allocation of our resources. By working with partners with complementary expertise to ours, we benefit from specialized skills that would be timeconsuming and expensive to develop internally. Moreover, this promotes intellectual diversity, through a variety of working methods and experiences that provide valuable inputs to our line of inquiry. With this approach, we are confident that we will be able to offer new therapeutic options to patients more quickly.
What types of partnerships do you prioritize?
The innovation process requires a long- term approach. Thus, for the discovery of novel targeted therapeutics, we rely at a pre-clinical research stage on external expertise related to “the making of the molecule.” As in the partnership forged with UK-based Vernalis, where internally we cover disease biology, concept validation and clinical translation. At a clinical development stage, we are engaged in co-development partnerships, as is the case with the US-based biotechnology company Scorpion Therapeutics (for two novel agents in subtypes of lung cancer).
Finally, some partnerships can also lead to an acquisition, as was the case with Vertical Bio which we acquired in September 2023; we then integrate the entire innovation process.
What objectives are you currently pursuing?
Our R&D efforts are guided by unmet medi- cal needs in targeted indications where patient selection is well defined, such as subsets of solid tumors and onco-hematology. We work on both small molecules and biotherapies.
The objective that we have set for ourselves as part of our strategic roadmap is to have 4 to 6 novel therapeutics in the clinical phase and 8 to 12 discovery programs by 2027. To achieve this ambitious objective, we have strengthened our teams.
We also benefit from the advice of a Scientific Advisory Board made up of 5 internationally renowned experts who meet perio- dically to provide advice on our R&D strategy and partnerships.
