Oncology

Committed to prolong and improve people’s lives.

OUR STRONG SENSE OF PURPOSE

With more than 35 years of oncology experience, we are driven by a strong sense of purpose: to prolong patients’ lives, improve health outcomes and create a positive impact for patients and society.

 

Our commitment to oncology

Ipsen’s oncology teams are at the heart of our mission to prolong and improve people’s lives. We focus on selected, common and rare cancers and work with like-minded partners to advance science and deliver new cancer treatments.

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Our commitment to patients

Being given a cancer diagnosis is life-changing, and while there are more treatment options available than ever before, there is still an urgent need for innovation. We have an unwavering commitment to serve patients with some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. Across oncology, we work with over 100 patient organizations worldwide and are committed to supporting programs in raising awareness of topics that are important to the communities we serve.

Key facts

Our expertise in oncology

With a heritage of over 35 years of expertise in cancer therapies, Oncology is Ipsen’s largest therapeutic area.

Over 400,000 new cases of kidney cancer are diagnosed worldwide each year, 90% of which are renal cell carcinoma (RCC). At diagnosis, up to 30% of patients present with advanced or metastatic RCC.  If detected in the early stages, the five-year survival rate is high, but for people living with advanced or late-stage metastatic RCC, the survival rate is much lower, around 12%, with no identified cure for this disease.

This is the most common cancer in the world and the most frequent in women; 65% to 75% of all breast cancers are hormone receptor positive.

Epithelioid sarcoma is a rare cancer called a soft tissue sarcoma. It begins as a growth of cells in the soft tissue and can occur anywhere on the body. It often starts beneath the skin on the finger, hand, forearm, knee or lower leg. It can cause one or more small, firm growths or lumps to form under the skin, and can often be mistaken for other conditions, but multiple growths may occur by the time a person seeks medical help. Epithelioid sarcoma often affects teenagers and young adults, but can also affect older people. Soft tissue sarcomas account for approximately 1% of all adult cancers, and epithelioid sarcoma accounts for about 1% of all soft tissue sarcomas every year in the U.S.

Follicular lymphoma is a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) which is a cancer of the lymphatic system. It develops when the body makes abnormal B lymphocytes. These lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that normally helps fight infections. When a patient has a lymphoma, the abnormal lymphocytes build up in the lymph nodes or other body organs. Between 15,000 and 20,000 patients in the U.S. are diagnosed with FL annually. Most diagnoses occur in advanced stages.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is also called hepatoma or HCC. It is the most common type of primary liver cancer. This type of liver cancer develops from the main liver cells called hepatocytes. It is more common in people with cirrhosis, where there is scarring of the liver due to previous damage such as from the hepatitis B or C virus, or long-term alcohol drinking. More than 900,000 new cases of liver cancer, 90% of which are HCC, are diagnosed worldwide each year. HCC is expected to cause 1 million global deaths annually by 2030.

Neuroendocrine tumors, or NETs, are a group of uncommon tumors that develop in the cells of the neuroendocrine system, throughout the body. NETs occur in both men and women, in general aged 50 to 60 years old, although they can affect anyone of any age. The three areas where NETs are mostly found in the body are the gastrointestinal tract, the pancreas and the lungs. There are 171,000 people living with NETs in the U.S. alone. The number of people newly diagnosed with NETs overall is believed to be rising. This is mainly due to increased awareness of the condition and diagnostic testing. The average NETs patient waits up to seven years to receive a diagnosis.

Neuroendocrine tumors are sometimes referred to as carcinoid tumors, particularly when they affect the small bowel, large bowel or appendix. Carcinoid syndrome is the collection of symptoms some people living with a neuroendocrine tumor may experience and is more common when the tumor has spread to the liver, as hormones such as serotonin are released into the bloodstream. While carcinoid syndrome can happen to people living with lung and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, this is usually rare.

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive, systemic disease with increasing incidence and is predicted to become the second most frequent cause of cancer-related death by 2030. Pancreatic cancer can be difficult to diagnose because of the lack of validated, specific screening tests that can easily and reliably find early-stage pancreatic cancer in people who do not show symptoms. People lving with pancreatic cancer often do not have symptoms in the early stages of the disease, meaning it is often not found until later stages when the cancer can no longer be removed with surgery and/or has spread from the pancreas to other parts of the body. This is the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in the US.

Prostate cancer usually develops slowly, so there may be no signs for many years. Over 1.4 million new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed worldwide in 2020, making it the fourth-most commonly occurring cancer globally and the second in the male population.

In 2020, over 580,000 new cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed worldwide. Thyroid cancer is the ninth-most commonly occurring cancer globally and incidence is three times higher in women than in men. While cancerous thyroid tumors include differentiated, medullary and anaplastic forms, differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) makes up about 90 to 95% of cases. DTC is typically treated with surgery, followed by ablation of the remaining thyroid tissue with radioactive iodine (RAI), but approximately 5 to 15% of cases are resistant to RAI treatment. People living with RAI-refractory DTC have an average estimated survival rate of three to five years.

Top stories in oncology

02 February 2024 3 mins read

Caring for a Loved One with Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer: Nora’s Story

Nora and her husband, Hector, met 39 years ago, got married shortly after, and have been inseparable ever since. In 2021, Hector was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer, which threw their entire family into navigating a very difficult diagnosis. Nora…

29 November 2023 1 mins read

‘Get men talking’: breaking the silence around prostate cancer

Tim Batchelor, Ipsen’s Head of Global Commercial Learning & Development, candidly shares his experience of living with prostate cancer. At the age of 48, Tim was confronted with a prostate cancer diagnosis. His early detection proved pivotal, leading to successful…

10 November 2023 2 mins read

Ipsen’s mission to accelerate innovation in oncology

The outputs from the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress this year encompassed several important new data announcements, highlighting key advances in the development of therapies for people living with cancer.  However, cancer remains a formidable global health challenge,…

23 October 2023 3 mins read

Debbie: Living Every Moment with Follicular Lymphoma

Debbie has been living with follicular lymphoma since 2011 and wants to tell her story to encourage other people to look out for the symptoms of blood cancer and to offer support and reassurance to those who have been diagnosed.

29 August 2023 2 mins read

Co-creating recipe guides with the kidney cancer patient community to tackle undernutrition during treatment

In France, we partnered with patient organization Association pour La Recherche sur les Tumeurs du Rein (A.R.T.u.R) and experts to help people living with kidney cancer overcome undernutrition.

29 August 2023 1 mins read

Uniting the neuroendocrine tumor (NET) community in Spain: Podcast series

We worked together with the Spanish patient organization NET España and local scientific society Grupo Español en Tumores Neuroendocrinos y Endocrinos (GETNE) on a podcast series to raise awareness of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), a group of uncommon tumors that develop…

29 August 2023 2 mins read

Tackling taboos in prostate cancer: Sex in the doctor’s office podcast

People living with prostate cancer in the Netherlands told us they needed more support around intimacy and sexual health due to the impact that their treatment can have on these. A LinkedIn poll also identified that 95% of caregivers of…

29 August 2023 3 mins read

Empowering people with RCC to take more active roles in their treatment and care decisions

Despite evidence suggesting that involving people living with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in treatment decisions can increase their overall survival and quality of life, there can be challenges to routinely embedding the Shared Decision Making (SDM) approach into practice.

26 June 2023 3 mins read

Offering reassurance: John shares his story about living with prostate cancer to reassure those who might be in a similar position

Experiencing any cancer diagnosis can be really overwhelming. However, prostate cancer can have its own nuances for those men who are living with it. John, from the UK, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in his mid-50s and he wants to…

31 May 2023 1 mins read

Steve: taking action against kidney cancer

Steve has been diagnosed with kidney cancer twice. After initial success with a nephrectomy, his cancer returned in January 2018. This time, his doctor said there was no treatment available. “He advised I would probably be put on life-extending drugs,”…

 

Ipsen oncology clinical trials

We are constantly striving to bring new treatments to the clinical trial stage to meet patients’ unmet medical needs.

 

Our pipeline

Collaborating with like-minded partners, we are focused on developing first- and best-in-class treatments for people living with cancer who have high unmet medical need. Our teams strive to accelerate innovation to bring new treatment options to patients who need them…