Servier in oncology: bringing innovation to patients

Interview conducted with Claude P Bertrand, PharmD, PhD, Executive Vice President of Servier Research and Development, Chief Scientific Officer, Servier, France. Claude Bertrand speaks to Roshaine Wijayatunga, Senior Editor: Oncology. Dr Claude Bertrand graduated in pharmacy (PharmD) from Strasbourg University, France, and obtained his PhD in Strasbourg with research in the fields of immunopharmacology and neurogenic inflammation. After a 2-year postdoctoral appointment at the University of California, San Francisco, USA, Claude joined the allergy and asthma unit at Ciba-Geigy (later Novartis) in Basel, Switzerland. In 1996, he moved to the Inflammatory Disease Unit at Roche Bioscience, CA, USA, where he became the head of the in vivo pharmacology group and was responsible for supporting projects in rheumatology and respiratory diseases. In 1999, he was recruited as Director of Biology for Inflammation, GI and Pain at Parke-Davies, which later became part of Pfizer where he headed drug discovery. In 2004, Dr Bertrand joined AstraZeneca as Vice President of Discovery for Respiratory and Inflammation Research at Alderley Park, UK, and, in 2005, he was appointed Global Senior Vice President for Respiratory and Inflammation Research Area overseeing research and development activities at three sites in the UK and Sweden. In 2009, Dr Bertrand joined Ipsen, France, as Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, and from June 2011 was the Executive Vice President for Research and Development, Chief Scientific Officer with a focus on oncology, neurology and endocrinology. In March 2017, he was appointed General Director R&D, Chief Scientific Officer at Servier and has recently been promoted to Executive Vice President R&D. As such, he joined the Executive Committee on 1 November 2018. Claude sits on the Board of Directors of Eclosion2 and ABIVAX, and is also part of the Scientific Advisory Board of MEDALIS. He was the President of ARIIS from 2011 to 2016. Since 2014, he has been on the Board of Hcéres. Claude has published more than 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals, authored 20 chapters and presented more than 100 communications at scientific meetings. Since 1996, he has been a visiting lecturer for PhD student programs at universities in London, Strasbourg, Nancy, Rennes, Orléans and Paris.