Research
Research
Cutting-edge patient-oriented R&D
We pursue a focused, open and agile strategy built on scientific innovation that concentrates on major unmet medical needs.
Our strategy: targeted R&D to maximize our therapeutic impact to help patients
How can we remain at the cutting-edge of therapeutic innovation when we are up against ultra-agile start-ups and the considerable resources of “Big Pharma”.
To tackle this challenge facing mid-size pharmaceutical companies, we took two key decisions with respect to R&D.
A unique model to facilitate R&D
As Servier is governed by a foundation, the Group may reinvest a considerable proportion of its revenue back into R&D. As such, nearly 20% of revenue is allocated to research and development, almost 70% of which goes on oncology. This mode of governance means we can effectively concentrate, in a sustainable way, on discovering and delivering innovative solutions for patients.
Our agile, pragmatic, patient-oriented scientific strategy
To implement our R&D strategy, we harness four drivers.
Patient focus
At Servier, this means working with and for patients, their representatives and patient organizations, right from the exploratory research phase as well as throughout the preclinical and clinical phases to speed up research, development and marketing of treatments that truly meet patient needs. Integrating patients’ point of view is essential as it guides us through the medicine’s use phase, enabling us to adapt it to real-life experience.
Precision medicine
This is all about developing the right medicine for the right patient from the outset by using biomarkers to identify those most likely to respond positively to the treatment (patient selection). In oncology, our R&D focuses on targeted therapies (to treat an alteration in the cancerous cell) and immuno-oncology (to stimulate the immune system).
Servier leading change in targeted therapies
Associating companion diagnostic tests with targeted therapies opens the door to a more personalized approach to medicine in many therapeutic areas. Establishing the most appropriate medicine/test combination is an essential part of the process to develop targeted therapies in oncology in order to provide the most effective treatments to patients once they have been diagnosed. These tests serve to identify an alteration, and therefore the sub-populations of patients likely to respond positively to treatment. Servier strongly believes that a personalized approach to medicine significantly improves both the treatment as well as patients’ quality of life throughout the process, which is why the Group has joined forces with several partners around the world to develop these cutting-edge technologies alongside the clinical development of targeted therapies.
Tech platforms
Our Group has chosen to concentrate on a certain number of therapeutically promising tech platforms in order to fully exploit their potential (small molecules, monoclonal antibodies and their derivatives).
The “One Innovation Engine” approach
This approach serves as a catalyst for innovation. It makes it possible to take advantage of innovative opportunities in-house or beyond the Group and encourages cross-functionality collaboration, open innovation, and fruitful cooperation with the scientific community, as demonstrated by the Group basing its R&D operations at Paris-Saclay and taking part in numerous collaborative projects at the platform. This approach enables the Group to remain agile and able to tap into innovation at its source.
Harnessing data and AI to accelerate therapeutic innovation
It takes around 10 years to develop a new medicine, and only 10% of the molecules tested pass every stage to reach the market. To accelerate the pace of research and maximize the chances a new treatment will successfully reach the end of the development process, we leverage data and artificial intelligence. Our Group has integrated AI into several R&D business cases to more rapidly develop new molecules and optimize clinical trials. This technology becomes crucial in a rapidly changing scientific environment, offers fresh perspectives from the preclinical and clinical research phases and helps to reduce the time required to make the new medicine available. It therefore offers hope to patients.
Furthermore, to expand our digital capabilities, we develop solid partnerships with tech leaders such as Google Cloud and cutting-edge platforms.
For example, our collaboration with Aitia on “digital twins” models organs and systems to simulate the potential effect of the candidate drugs being tested. Similarly, the partnership with Owkin was set up to identify new therapeutic targets and biomarkers using AI, especially in oncology.
Centralizing data to optimize the R&D process
To guarantee the efficacy of our therapeutic projects and digitize our R&D process, we rely on data that are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), which we centralize in a single location so as to ensure they are exploited in the same way by all our tools – both in-house tools (Federates, Score, Holistic Rims) and partner solutions (Aitia, Owkin, Google Cloud).
The Federates platform was designed to create an easy-to-use collaborative workspace to share and exploit data. The Score program seeks to improve efficiency in clinical development to serve patients. Finally, the Holistic Rims program applies a unified system to digitize the process of managing marketing authorization applications.
1 Single Pill Combinations simplify complex treatments by grouping several medicines in one pill.