The Asco congress in Chicago is the benchmark meeting in the fight against cancer. The participants also come, and it is less known, to look for partners and sign contracts.
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The American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) organizes a congress each year in Chicago to take stock of the latest advances in the fight against cancer. Some 40,000 oncologists and specialists are gathered there until June 4. This annual meeting is also an opportunity for many researchers to present their work and find partners and funding.
In a large hotel in Chicago, Marion Alcantara presents her work in front of around ten managers from Caribou, an American bio-tech company that produces innovative drugs. The hematologist from the Curie Institute came to offer them an alliance with its cell therapy research and development platform. “In fact, Asco is a big business place for lots of doctors, she confirms. They come to meet companies, to try to open clinical trials in their centers for example. We identified who was going to be present at the conference, identified important communications. Then we contacted them in advance, we sent them by email the presentation of what we do, to establish a meeting schedule.”
Discussions with the American start-up began a year ago. This meeting is an opportunity for Tonia Nesheiwat, vice-president of medical affairs at Caribou, to move forward in the negotiation: “We are going to discuss the studies that we are doing, just to make sure that we are both interested in this data, and then we want to be sure that we can include French patients. We would manufacture the drug to ship it towards patients in France.”
For Emmanuel Gomez, responsible for finding partners for this platform born at the Curie Institute, the Chicago congress is an essential moment: “This is clearly a key moment of the year, which will punctuate the next two years of partnership. The first meetings are looking very good : we had great discussions with bio-tech and pharma companies, small and large. American companies above all, but also European and emerging companies, Chinese in particular with new technologies and the desire to leave Chinese territory and open up to Europe and the United States.”
Between the first contact and the signing of a contract, it takes between 9 and 18 months.
