From fundraising to the industrial production of drugs, this is the great difference that the Telethon is about to achieve. With the support of the public investment bank (BPI), the French Association against myopathies (AFM-Téléthon) will create in 2019 the largest European center for the development and production of gene and cell therapies. The BPI is investing 84 million euros, the AFM, 36 million euros, but the latter will hold the majority of the capital (54%).
No break in the objectives that the association had set itself in 1958, assures the president, Laurence Tiennot-Herment, but a small revolution to accelerate research and cure.
Already at Genopole d’Evry (Essonne), where the first stone of the industrial platform will be laid in 2016, Genethon Bioprod manufactures drugs that are the subject of clinical trials in humans, specifies The Parisian.
“We are witnessing a real explosion in the number of test projects. We support 37 of them for 27 different diseases concerning immune deficiency, vision, liver, central nervous system and neuromuscular diseases of course (…) We have to anticipate and build the tools to get to the end of this story “.
Beyond the research and production of biotherapies, the association also intends to shelter itself from the greed of foreign investors. “This leadership in innovative therapies, born of public generosity, must remain in France”, explains Laurence Tiennot-Herment, specifying that this objective will make it possible to control the prices of future drugs.
In 2014, the Telethon raised nearly 93 million euros. It will take, this year, all the talent of Marc Lavoine, sponsor of the edition, to convince the donors that the money collected goes to patients and not to an industry.
