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- Real-world data: Institut Curie and IQVIA renew their collaboration to transform patient care
Institut Curie, France’s leading center for cancer research and treatment, and IQVIA, the world leader in clinical research, market analysis and health intelligence, announce the renewal of their strategic framework agreement for a period of three years. Initiated in 2019, this collaboration is based on a strong commitment to a responsible and secure use of health data, in compliance with patient confidentiality and regulatory standards, in order to enhance real-world data, from the "real life" of patients, and thus optimize treatments and promote access to innovative therapies.
Reflecting the daily lives of patients and hospital departments, real-world data is an invaluable source for deepening medical knowledge. They gather information from medical records, patient feedback via questionnaires and connected applications, as well as population and administrative data1. They complement clinical trials by integrating the diversity of care pathways and the impact of treatments in real conditions.
Real-world studies provide "concrete evidence", allowing for the evaluation of the effectiveness and tolerance of treatments, to identify unmet medical needs, to optimize and personalize care, to accelerate access to therapeutic innovations and to reduce the development costs of new medicines.
Thanks to its health data warehouse2, Institut Curie has an exceptional heritage of real-world data, the result of the progressive digitization of 25 years of care for cancer patients. This pseudonymized data is accessible only in highly secure workspaces, in compliance with CNIL3 requirements.
The real-world data at Institut Curie
- More than 660,000 patient records
- More than 2 million medical imaging examinations (CT, MRI, PET-Scans, etc.)
- 25,000 digitized anatomical pathology slides (since 2022)
- 25,000 molecular analysis exams per year
A strategic alliance to revolutionize patient care
At Institut Curie, the exploitation of this data, in a secure and regulated framework, is at the heart of an ambitious strategy to advance medical research. Since 2019, Institut Curie has been collaborating with IQVIA, the world leader in clinical research and real-world analyses.
This alliance positions Institut Curie as a key partner of IQVIA in France, within its "Oncology Evidence Network" (OEN), which brings together more than 40 European hospital centers of excellence in oncology. In collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry, this network leads projects based on real-world data to accelerate therapeutic innovation. Since its creation, OEN has conducted more than 50 studies, covering 20 indications, for 25 promoters from the pharmaceutical world. Institut Curie is among the three most active centers of the network in Europe today.
Over the past six years, this collaboration has made it possible to conduct 16 real-world studies and the production of more than 13 scientific publications and communications on major indications: breast, lung and ovarian cancers among others. This work supports the approval of new treatments, promotes a more personalized approach, modifies the standards of care and improves the quality of life of patients.
"ROS1" lung cancers: the effectiveness of targeted therapies confirmed in real life
In October 2025, during the congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), a study conducted by Bristol Myers Squibb, in collaboration with Professor Nicolas Girard, Head of the Medical Oncology Department at Institut Curie, won the prize for the best poster. This study evaluated the effectiveness of several targeted therapies - crizotinib, entrectinib, lorlatinib and repotrectinib - in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a gene fusion ROS1, a form that is difficult to treat. This study is based on the analysis of real-world data collected in a secure setting from several hospitals in Europe and Canada.
The patients ROS1+ representing a very small population (1 to 3% of NSCLC), conventional clinical trials offer a limited vision of their management. Real-world data therefore provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of targeted treatments in current care conditions.
The results show higher survival rates than those obtained with chemotherapy or immunotherapy alone, confirming the need to develop innovative and personalized targeted therapies for this rare population of patients.
"We are delighted with the renewal, for three years, of this major framework agreement with IQVIA, a leading player in the exploitation of health data. This collaboration, made possible by our Carnot label of excellence, once again illustrates our ability to unite our expertise to accelerate innovation in oncology. Together, we will pursue a common goal: to concretely improve treatments and develop new therapeutic modalities, to go further and faster," explains Dr. Cécile Campagne, Director of Institut Curie’s Technology Transfer Office and Deputy Director of Carnot Curie Cancer.
"The OEN network is based on a solid scientific collaboration with leading hospitals such as Institut Curie, relying on close collaborations with clinical and data teams to carry out fine analyses based on real-life data. By strengthening our collaboration with Institut Curie, we reaffirm our common commitment to advancing oncology research and improving patient outcomes through innovative approaches based on real-life data," declares Benedikt Maissenhaelter, Director of the Oncology Evidence Network at IQVIA.
"In France, where more than 400,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year, this renewed collaboration with Institut Curie reinforces our commitment to generating real-life evidence to optimize patient care. We will continue to evaluate the effectiveness and tolerance of treatments in the French context, in order to accelerate access to innovative therapies and to personalize care pathways," concludes Frank Swaelens, President of IQVIA France.
By combining their expertise and resources, Institut Curie and IQVIA are paving the way for new advances in oncology research and patient care.
[1] Population data is information collected about a large group of individuals, often at the scale of an entire population. They are used to describe, analyze and understand the characteristics, health and behaviors of a population rather than isolated individuals.
[2] Institut Curie is the first cancer center, and one of the first healthcare institutions in France, to have since 2024 an authorization for its health data warehouse meeting the requirements of the CNIL standard published in 2021.
[3]CNIL (French Data Protection Authority) is the independent French administrative authority responsible for protecting personal data and ensuring privacy rights.
