Servier president Olivier Laureau (centre) lays foundation for new research hub
Servier has laid the foundation stone of a new R&D hub in Paris aimed at boosting its output of novel medicines.
France’s second biggest homegrown pharma company behind Sanofi, Servier has been transforming itself in recent year by breaking away from its traditional areas of research expertise, and investing in cutting edge areas such as novel cancer candidates, including CAR-T.
Last year it paid out $2.4bn to buy Shire’s oncology division, and opened up an office in Kendall Square in Boston, Massachusetts in order to tap into new science and licensing opportunities.
Now it has committed to making the Paris-Saclay Cluster, just south of the capital, its research base in France.
The new Servier Paris-Saclay Research Institute will consolidate all of the company’s research activities in the country by 2022, sitting in a cluster home to 40% of all industrial R&D in the Paris region.
Servier’s new home will see it rub shoulders with a wide range of research ventures, with the goal of creating a natural breeding ground for life sciences collaboration, as seen in Boston’s Kendall Square, San Francisco and England’s ‘golden triangle’.
Olivier Laureau, president of Servier, said: “It is with great joy and pride to lay the foundation stone of the future Servier Paris-Saclay Research Institute, within this innovative and dynamic ecosystem. This milestone further exemplifies the group’s ongoing commitment to the discovery of innovative therapeutic solutions for patients.”
In its late-stage pipeline, Servier and partner Amgen have heart failure candidate omecamtiv mecarbil advancing towards a pivotal phase 3 trial read out.
The company was hit last year when the much-anticipated Pixuvri failed in a phase 3 trial for in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).