Patrick Couvreur - Biography#
Patrick COUVREUR is an Emeritus Professor of Pharmacy at the Paris-Saclay University, member of the Académie des Sciences and holder of the chair of “Innovations Technologiques” (2009-2010) at the prestigious « Collège de France ». He is appointed as a Senior Member of the “Institut Universitaire de France” since 2009. He is also the recipient of an “ERC Advanced Grant” (2010-2015) and of an “ERC Proof of Concept” (2015-2016). He has hold many important national and international academic positions as Director of the UMR CNRS 8612 (a CNRS associated department gathering together more than 120 researchers in the drug delivery field), Director of the Doctoral School “Therapeutic Innovation” (over 300 PhD students at Paris-Sud University) and founder member of the pole of competitivity MEDICEN. During 30 years (1985-2015), Patrick COUVREUR was also an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Louvain (Belgium). He was/is a member of the board of governors of many international scientific organizations (ie. The International Pharmaceutical Federation FIP, the Controlled Release Society CRS, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Scientists EUFEPS, APGI etc.). Since 2014, he was a member of the LS-7 panel of the European Research Council (ERC consolidator grant) and he became the Chair of the panel in 2016, 2018 and 2020. Patrick COUVREUR has served in many scientific committees in France (Institut Pasteur, ENS Cachan, Academic Council of Paris-Saclay University, Scientific Committee of the Région Centre, Comité National of the CNRS, Conseil National des Universités CNU, Board of Governors of Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, President 2020 of the Académie Nationale de Pharmacie etc.).
Prof Patrick COUVREUR’s contributions in the field of drug delivery, nanomedicine and drug targeting are highly recognized around the world (Google Scholar H-index 131 and 73,500 citations; Web of Science H-index 102 and 43,400 citations) with more than 600 peer review research publications, some of them in prestigious journals (ie. Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Angewandte Chemie, Cancer Research, Journal of the American Chemical Society etc.). And he has supervised over 100 PhD students. His research is interdisciplinary, aiming at developing new nanomedicines for the treatment of severe diseases, incl. cancer, neurological disorders and intracellular infectious diseases. This research stands at the interface between Physico-Chemistry of Colloids, Polymer Chemistry, Material Science, pharmaceutical formulation, Cellular and Molecular Biology and Experimental Pharmacology.
Patrick COUVREUR’s research has led to the funding of three start-up companies (Bioalliance, Medsqual and Squalpharma). Bioalliance (now ONXEO) entered the stock market in 2005 and a nanomedicine invented in Couvreur’s lab has reached a complete phase III clinical trial for the treatment of resistant hepatocarcinoma.
The major scientific contribution of Patrick COUVREUR to the Pharmaceutical Sciences is also recognized by numerous international (the “2004 Pharmaceutical Sciences World Congress Award”, the prestigious “Host Madsen Medal”, the “European Pharmaceutical Scientist Award” of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the European Inventor Award 2013 given by the European Patent Office, the Speiser’s award from ETH and the Higuchi Award 2015, Japan etc.) and national awards (The Grand Prix de l’Innovation of « L’USINE NOUVELLE » 2008, the “Prix Galien 2009” and the “Médaille de l’Innovation 2012” of the CNRS and the Grand Prix Achille le Bel 2020). And he is also a Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Ghent (Belgium) and Montréal (Canada). His appointment as a member of eight academies is another recognition of major scientific and scholarly contributions of Patrick COUVREUR (Académie des Sciences, Académie des Technologies, Académie Nationale de Médecine and Académie Nationale de Pharmacie in France, as well as, the Académie Royale de Médecine in Belgium, the Royal Academy of Pharmacy in Spain, the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering, two of the three National Academies in USA).
By a decree of the President of the French Republic, Patrick Couvreur has been appointed as “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur” (Knight of the Légion d'Honneur).
