The Servier Institute and the Pasteur-Weizmann Council joined forces over 20 years ago to create a prize to encourage fundamental research geared directly toward therapeutic progress for the benefit of patients. 

It is one of the most prestigious research prizes in the world and is awarded every three years for work in one of various fields, selected at each edition by a scientific committee. In 2021, the field chosen was neurodegenerative diseases.

“The 2021 Pasteur-Weizmann/Servier Prize is designed to encourage young researchers and generate interest in research as a career by paying tribute to a leading, internationally renowned specialist,” says Christophe Charpentier, Delegate-General of the Servier Institute.

For thirty years, Catherine Lubetzki’s research has focused on central nervous system repair mechanisms in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), an illness that affects 50 to 300 people in every 100,000. Professor Lubetzki, who is head of the neurology department at AP-HP Sorbonne University and Medical Director of the Paris Brain Institute at Pitié Salpêtrière hospital, is “an internationally recognized researcher and an outstanding clinician,” says Christophe Charpentier, Delegate-General of the Servier Institute.

She said she felt “very honored to receive the Pasteur-Weizmann/Servier Prize, which recognizes the work of the entire team of clinicians and researchers” and went on to say that: “It’s a real point of pride for us and will encourage us to continue with our research.”

The €250,000 prize will be awarded to the research team working on “Remyelination in multiple sclerosis: from biology to clinical application”, led jointly by professors Catherine Lubetzki and Bruno Stankoff at the Brain Institute.

Their work has already led to numerous advances and discoveries in the demyelination and remyelination of nerve fibers in multiple sclerosis patients and has opened the way for therapeutic trials to assess the ability of new treatments to regenerate nerve fibers damaged by the disease.

The Servier Institute is a non-profit organization belonging to the Servier group, which is tasked with promoting medical research in all its forms.

The Pasteur-Weizmann Council is a partnership between the Pasteur Institute and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, which began some 50 years ago.