A call for projects of 275 million euros launched by the government

Without being the major axis of Emmanuel Macron’s “France 2030” project, the development of biomedicines features prominently on the president’s roadmap. And for good reason: half of the drugs in development are biomedicines, and the biotherapies market might reach 320 billion by 2025. But France remains highly dependent (95%) on imports of biomedicines, and it has even gone from first to fourth place in terms of production.

Last June, as part of the health innovation plan 2030, Emmanuel Macron promised 800 million euros of investments for this sector, setting himself the objective of developing 5 new biomedicines within 5 years. The government detailed its drug innovation strategy on Friday and launched calls for projects aimed at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, to promote the development of new biomedicines.

16 projects already selected

Created from life, unlike conventional chemically manufactured drugs, biomedicines are more complex and more expensive to produce. The acceleration strategy unveiled on Friday will focus on four areas of development: biotechnologies in oncology (such as monoclonal antibodies or CAR-T cells); innovations in gene and cell therapy, excluding oncology; new biological systems for producing these therapies; and the development of more efficient production units.

Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education, and Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister Delegate in charge of Industry, announced the opening of the call for projects “Innovations in biotherapies”, endowed with approximately 275 million. euros. It is aimed at companies and consortia developing biotherapies or tools to speed up their development. In addition, 16 projects were selected during a first call for expressions of interest, for an amount of aid of 39 million euros.

Biomedicines in the genes