An accelerator of scientific and biomedical innovation at the service of the patient The Institut Roche establishes and promotes high-level scientific partnerships with French academic teams, thus contributing to the discovery of therapeutic innovations. It is currently the only structure in France devoted entirely to partnership- based research in life sciences. Since 2009, it has allowed the implementation of 140 scientific programmes, representing an investment of over €40 million in public-private partnerships, which resulted in 64 publications and 4 patent registrations. It conducts research in the areas of cancer, neuroscience, ophthalmology, infectious diseases, immunology and rare diseases. As a collaborative and multidisciplinary research structure, the Institut Roche aims to rapidly translate fundamental research discoveries into clinical applications for patients.
Institut Roche
The missions of the Institut Roche are to identify innovative research projects, to establish high-level scientific partnerships in areas of mutual interest, and to act as an interface with the scientific community. With a structure entirely and exclusively devoted to research, the Institut Roche closely interfaces with the independent and autonomous research units of the Roche Group.
The Institut Roche has for several years played a key role in France in the establishment and scientific steering of numerous collaborations between French research actors and these units of the Roche Group. It aims to act both as the access portal and as the catalyst of innovation for patients in France. It thus builds on the translational R&D investments of Roche Pharma (therapeutics) and Roche Diagnostics, while at the same time supporting the third pillar of precision medicine: artificial intelligence and the use of patients’ molecular or imaging data collected in close partnership with university hospital centres of excellence.
For example, the Institut Roche is pursuing work on Alzheimer’s disease together with Inserm and AP-HP (IMABio3 study). Another collaboration (InfoR-Autism) with the Fondation FondaMental, the CEA, the Institut Pasteur and Inserm, covers the main features of autism. Through framework agreements, the Institut Roche works closely with centres such as the Institut Pasteur, the Institut Curie, the Oncopole de Toulouse, and the regional cancer centre Gustave Roussy in Villejuif. All these medium and long term investments are aimed at improving knowledge to develop appropriate therapeutic solutions.
Patrice Denèfle, General Manager of the Roche Institute
“Translational research” to speed up therapeutic innovation
Cooperation between public and private research has given rise to so-called “translational” research, which allows patients to benefit from medical advances as rapidly as possible. Translational research is defined as the missing link between medicine and science. As such, it reinforces the link between research and therapeutic applications.
Cancers, neurological and psychiatric disorders, infectious diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, etc. There is an urgent need to speed up the arrival of new treatments to ensure more effective treatment and eventual cure of people with serious diseases. Life sciences are continually developing and help us to better understand diseases. However, if this understanding of the molecular mechanisms of disease is to lead to earlier diagnosis and safer and more effective treatments, it is essential for public and private researchers to communicate and work together.
The development of research partnerships is in fact vital to meet the challenges of increasingly personalised medicine, with treatments targeted at specific molecular defects, while at the same time taking into account the patient’s biological characteristics. The Institut Roche builds on the centres of excellence in translational medicine that have emerged under the “Investing for the Future” programme. This supporting ecosystem facilitates the discovery of new treatments for cancer, and immuno-oncology in particular, neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis (with the successful transposition of oncological knowledge to neurosciences), infectious diseases (hepatitis B, multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria), or rare diseases (spinal muscular atrophy, Huntington’s chorea, etc.).
Distinct from and complementary to the Fondation Roche, focusing on cutting-edge translational research in partnership with academic centres of excellence, the Institut Roche is a successful example of public-private partnerships in France that allow patients to benefit from major therapeutic innovations as rapidly as possible.
Institut Roche
30, cours de l’Île Seguin
F-92650 Boulogne Billancourt cedex
Tel. : +33 (0)1 47 61 40 00
http://www.roche.fr/innovation-recherche-medicale/
Originally published in ©Parlementaires de France Magazine, now ©Research Innov France.
