As one of the leading privately-owned pharmaceutical companies, where does Servier position itself in the market?

Servier is a unique pharmaceutical company in the sense that we have no shareholders and are controlled by a non-profit foundation. We have been committed to therapeutic progress to serve patient needs, and we strive to create a world where quality healthcare is available and accessible to all.  Servier provides branded and generic drugs used to treat nearly 100 million patients daily. Servier reinvests approximately 25% of our revenue into R&D, and we have over 2,900 employees worldwide committed to R&D activities. Our growth is driven by innovation in five therapeutic areas, including: cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, immune-inflammatory diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders. We are a leader in cardiology - ranked second in Europe and eighth worldwide. Oncology has also become a top priority for Servier in recent years, highlighted by our recent acquisition of Shire’s oncology branch, and the decision has been made to focus our R&D spend to reach 50% on oncology in 2020. We have a commercial presence in 149 countries and employ approximately 22,000 people worldwide.

Historically, Servier has had a focus in cardiology and rheumatology. How has your US$2.4 billion acquisition of Shire’s oncology branch changed your overall therapeutic focus?

Servier is a research organization focused on serving the needs of patients, and therefore, the oncology space is an obvious area that we wanted to focus on. The company is not reducing its activities in other domains such as  cardiology or diabetes, but only adding another priority field to balance its portfolio.

In 2018, Servier acquired Shire’s oncology branch for US$2.4 billion, which enabled the company to establish a direct commercial presence in the United States and strengthen our oncology drug portfolio. The objective is to continue expanding our presence and research activities within the field of oncology. The acquisition included two in-market products: ONCASPAR - a treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) - and the rights for ONIVYDE - a treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer post-gemcitabine based therapy – the last one outside of the United States. Moreover, the portfolio also included two early stage immuno-oncology pipeline collaborations.

Servier also launched Servier BioInnovation in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2018. What was the importance for Servier in establishing a presence in the United States?

Servier opened the BioInnovation office in Cambridge, Massachusetts in February 2018, at the core of this world-class innovation cluster. The United States is a key market for us, especially in the field of oncology, and we intend to establish a long-lasting position in this field with the objectives to treat even more patients with innovative medicines and to become a leading global player in the oncology domain. Servier has several research alliances with U.S. biotechs, pharmaceutical laboratories, startup companies, scientific organizations and prestigious academic centers with our active partnership policy in the field, which includes Novartis, Amgen, Cellectis, Allogene Therapeutics, Macrogenics, Pieris, Miragen, LabCentral, MIT and Harvard University. Together we are committed to therapeutic progress to serve unmet patient needs.

What are Servier’s key objectives moving forward as you continue to establish the company’s U.S. presence? 

Servier’s key objective is to continue serving the need of the patients. We want to ensure with existing drugs that there is enough supply, that patients have access to drugs and that lives will be saved. Another objective is to add products to our portfolio and increase our footprint in the oncology space. We have the ambition to be a strong player in the U.S. market and a leader in each of the domains where we have a presence. Servier is focused on innovation and progress in the pharmaceutical industry. We aim to be a partner of choice in the life sciences industry as we believe that multiple collaborations will increase the probabilities of success of our programs and the chances to discover new therapeutics for the benefit of patients.