IMMUCAN

Integrated immunoprofiling of large adaptive cancer patients cohorts
IMMUCAN logo

FACTS & FIGURES

Start Date
End Date
Call
IMI2 - Call 13
Grant agreement number
821558

Type of Action: 
RIA (Research and Innovation Action)

Contributions
IMI Funding
17 830 000
EFPIA in kind
16 850 000
Other
1 099 304
Total Cost
35 779 304

Summary

Some new cancer treatments harness the immune system to fight the disease. However, for most patients, they do not deliver a long-lasting response and they often cause unpleasant side effects. To address these challenges, IMMUCAN aims to study the tumour microenvironment in a bid to gain a deeper understanding of how the immune system and cancer cells interact at the molecular level.

Using cutting-edge technologies, the team will analyse tumour tissue, blood, stool and saliva samples as well as clinical information from some 3 000 patients with colorectal, lung, head and neck, breast, gastric and renal cancers. By comparing patients who are not going through immune therapy with patients who are, the project hopes to build up a detailed picture of the tumour and its microenvironment, and the impact of current treatments. This information could be used to further improve existing treatments and to develop new ones.  In the longer term, the project results could result in the identification of biological markers that will show which patients are most likely to respond well to immune therapies, and which patients would benefit from a combination of immune therapies and conventional treatments.

Achievements & News

The secret life of tumours
February 2020

In recent funding calls, IMI turned its attention to emerging cancer therapies, seeking better understanding of things like factors behind resistance to treatment and immunotherapy success. Two projects in this field were launched recently – IMMUCAN and imSAVAR.###

IMMUCAN aims to analyse the tumour tissue, blood, stool, saliva, and clinical data from about 3 000 patients to hopefully better understand the mechanisms of resistance to current treatments (including immunotherapy) that would enable identification of new therapeutic targets and identify biomarkers that can tell us who is most likely to respond well to what treatment.

imSAVAR is creating tools to help figure out the potential safety or efficacy issues of immune therapies in the early drug development stages. Currently, tests used early in drug development don’t reflect the full complexity of the human immune system, and they tend to be based on a healthy immune system. This means that it is hard to predict how safe or effective immune therapies are before they are tested in humans.

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Participants Show participants on map

EFPIA companies
  • Abbvie Inc, North Chicago, Illinois, United States
  • Bayer Aktiengesellschaft, Leverkusen, Germany
  • Eli Lilly And Company LTD, Basingstoke, United Kingdom
  • Glaxosmithkline Research And Development LTD., Brentford, Middlesex, United Kingdom
  • Institut De Recherche Pierre Fabre, Toulouse, France
  • Institut De Recherches Internationales Servier Iris, Suresnes, France
  • Janssen Pharmaceutica Nv, Beerse, Belgium
  • Merck Kommanditgesellschaft Auf Aktien, Darmstadt, Germany
  • Sanofi-Aventis Recherche & Developpement, Chilly Mazarin, France
Universities, research organisations, public bodies, non-profit groups
  • Centre De Lutte Contre Le Cancer Leon Berard, Lyon, France
  • Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Charite - Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • De Duve Institute Aisbl, Bruxelles, Belgium
  • European Organisation For Research And Treatment Of Cancer Aisbl, Brussels, Belgium
  • Forum Des Patients Europeens, 1040, Belgium
  • Fundacio Centre De Regulacio Genomica, Barcelona, Spain
  • Institut Curie, Paris, France
  • Institut Jules Bordet Asbl, Brussels, Belgium
  • Institut National De La Sante Et De La Recherche Medicale, Paris, France
  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
  • King'S College London, London, United Kingdom
  • Luxembourg Institute Of Health, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
  • SIB Institut Suisse De Bioinformatique, CH-660-0733998-3, Genève, Switzerland
  • The University Of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
  • Universitat Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
  • Universite Paris Cite, Paris, France
  • Uniwersytet Warszawski, Warszawa, Poland
  • Weizmann Institute Of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-sized companies (<€500 m turnover)
  • Owkin France, Paris, France
Non EFPIA companies
  • Celsius Therapeutics Inc, Cambridge, United States
Project coordinator
Stéphane Lejeune
European Organisation For Research And Treatment Of Cancer Aisbl