Professor Thierry Philip Takes Office as OECI President

Professor Thierry Philip, President of the Institut Curie, has been elected President of the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes ( OECI ) for a three-year term.

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At the end of June 2018, Professor Philip, an oncologist and pediatrician, will take over as head of this European organization, which brings together 90 institutes and university centers and whose mission is fully devoted to cancer.

This European non-governmental, non-profit organization aims to promote cooperation between its members or associate members and pursues a triple objective:

• to provide cancer patients in Europe with equal access to high-quality care;
• to assist European institutes with the implementation of a quality system for oncology care;
• to promote and accelerate the progress of translational research.

In this regard, half of the 90 OECI centers are engaged in a quality-accreditation process. Nineteen were certified as "Comprehensive Cancer Centers" and twelve as "Clinical Cancer Centers."

Professor Philip succeeds Professor Dominique de Valeriola (Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels) in continuing to strengthen this network around key priorities, such as:

• Consolidating the accreditation program, namely via cooperation with the European Academy of Cancer Science.

"We must defend the multidisciplinary therapeutic model in treating cancer. I can testify to the strength of this approach owing to the experience I gained at the Institut Curie, an iconic institute founded in 1909 by Marie Curie using the research-care continuum model," says the new President.

• Organizing major European working groups in promising fields, including molecular bio-pathology for the development of tumor banks.
• Strengthening the links between OECI members and representatives of patient organizations.

"5% of the European population has had cancer. Their expectations in terms of relapse prevention, quality of life and care are crucial," emphasizes Professor Philip.

One of the flagship projects of this mandate will be to reflect upon the role of the OECI in a possible "European cancer mission," whose objective will be to organize the various existing networks around major themes, such as prevention (which could reduce 30 to 40% of cancers), molecular diagnosis and early detection (which could reduce the economic burden of cancer by increasing the number of operations performed on small tumors).

"My primary objective is to make the OECI available to others," Professor Philip concludes.

The original source-language text of this announcement is the official, authoritative version. Translations are provided as an accommodation only, and should be cross-referenced with the source-language text, which is the only version of the text intended to have legal effect.

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Contact information

Institut Curie
Catherine Goupillon, 01 56 24 55 23
catherine.goupillon@curie.fr