French TechBio Cure51 announces a major partnership with AP-HP, the Paris based French institution that owns Europe's largest university hospital network.

• This groundbreaking scientific collaboration is part of the Rosalind clinical study, aimed at analyzing and understanding the biology of exceptional cancer survivors. The partnership will initially focus on pancreatic cancer patients who have defied the odds.
• Five AP-HP hospitals—La Pitié Salpêtrière, Paul Brousse, Beaujon, Henri Mondor, and Saint-Antoine—will provide access to critical clinical data, tumor samples, and biological material from long-term survivors to help advance cancer treatment. 
• As AP-HP comprises 39 hospitals located in the Paris region and treats over 8 million patients annually, this partnership represents a key milestone in Cure51’s development.

Paris, France, [DATE] – French TechBio scale-up Cure51 has signed a strategic agreement with Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), launching the first phase of a partnership with five of its leading oncology hospitals specializing in pancreatic cancer treatment. This collaboration will integrate clinical data and tumor samples essential to Cure51’s translational research while leveraging AP-HP’s world-class oncology expertise.

The five participating AP-HP hospitals will share more than 50 cases of exceptional survivors of metastatic pancreatic cancer with Cure51. The objective is to identify key biological markers that explain why some patients survive far beyond expectations despite an aggressive late-stage diagnosis—an urgent priority as pancreatic cancer incidence continues to rise. Every year, AP-HP provides care to over 60,000 cancer patients, representing a third of all oncology cases in the Île-de-France region.

As part of the partnership, Cure51 will conduct sequencing on tumor samples from AP-HP patients and return the full results to the hospitals, enabling them to utilize this data for patient care and institutional research projects. Additionally, Cure51’s standard revenue-sharing model with partner hospitals will apply to this agreement with AP-HP.

A Major Step in Pancreatic Cancer Research

Professor Louis De Mestier, oncologist at Beaujon Hospital, emphasized: “This collaboration between Cure51 and AP-HP hospitals marks a significant step forward in the fight against pancreatic cancer. By combining clinical data with medical expertise, we aim to better understand resistance mechanisms and significantly improve patient survival, while exponentially accelerating the speed of our research.”

Pancreatic Cancer: A Formidable Challenge

In 2023, 16,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer were diagnosed in France, with 495,000 cases worldwide in 2020. As the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in France and the seventh globally, the five-year survival rate for metastatic pancreatic cancer remains alarmingly low, at just 3%. Surgery is currently the primary treatment option, but only 15-20% of patients qualify due to late-stage detection. Other treatments, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are typically used to slow disease progression rather than offer a cure.

The Growing Role of TechBio in Medical Research

For several years, AP-HP has actively supported technological innovation, collaborating with numerous startups to process medical data, test emerging technologies, and integrate digital solutions into patient care and research. By providing clinical expertise and resources, AP-HP fosters a dynamic ecosystem for technological advancements in healthcare.

Public-private partnerships between university hospitals and TechBio companies are crucial for accelerating medical discoveries. By analyzing vast datasets, they enable the identification of novel therapeutic targets, improve diagnostic precision, and pave the way for personalized medicine.

Lauren Demerville, Head of Partnerships and Legal Affairs at AP-HP, commented: “This collaboration with Cure51 offers AP-HP hospitals a unique opportunity to contribute to a major breakthrough in pancreatic cancer research. By joining forces, we bring cutting-edge medical and scientific resources to fast-track new therapeutic approaches. Our partnership reflects the commitment of public hospitals to fostering innovation for the benefit of patients and advancing knowledge in complex fields like oncology.”

A Vision for the Future: Making Every Patient a Survivor

The long-term ambition is to extend this partnership to other treatment-resistant cancers, including glioblastoma (an aggressive brain cancer) and small cell lung cancer. Cure51 co-founders Nicolas Wolikow and Simon Istolainen stated: “This partnership with AP-HP is a pivotal step for Cure51. Access to samples, data, and AP-HP’s clinical expertise will enable us to advance our research significantly faster. We firmly believe that this collaboration will accelerate the development of new therapies, transforming how pancreatic cancer is treated and improving patient survival through the systematic, multimodal analysis of survival-driving biological factors.”

With multiple partnerships secured this year—including 10xGenomics, Unicancer, and a €15 million funding round—Cure51 aims to fast-track research and identify therapeutic targets explaining the exceptional survival of the 1-3% of patients who defy the odds against these so-called incurable cancers.