A day organized by the Alliance for Mental Health and the Foundation for Medical Research, at the Ministry for Higher Education and Scientific Research, in partnership with Inserm, CNRS, and PEPR PROPSY, among others.
The Minister for Higher Education, Research, and Space, Philippe Baptiste, highlighted structural advances, notably the PEPR PROPSY and its French Minds longitudinal cohort.
Marion Leboyer, Scientific Director of PEPR PROPSY and Executive Director of the Fondation FondaMental, noted the need to invest in precision psychiatry.
Psychiatric disorders represent €160 billion per year. Mental health is the largest item of expenditure for the French national health insurance system. The cost of inaction is higher than that of research.
The current difficulties are based on three factors:
- heterogeneous diagnostic categories that are not biologically validated,
- clinical trials without objective biomarkers,
- and drugs that are often discovered by chance, without targeting the specific mechanisms of the diseases.
Hence the need to develop precision psychiatry, which aims to:
- identify measurable biomarkers,
- understand the causes of diseases,
- and test targeted strategies for patient subgroups.
France has significant assets and has already achieved some initial successes:
✅ The development of brain imaging to guide targeted interventions.
✅ The identification of genetic mutations involved in autism.
✅ The identification of immunological abnormalities in psychiatry (40% of patients affected).
✅ The existence of Expert Centers throughout the country.
✅ The development of imaging and genomics platforms.
✅ The creation of start-ups.
✅ Support for France 2030 projects.
✅ The existence of a Franco-British consortium on biomarkers.
✅ The establishment of international collaborations: in Canada (metabolic psychiatry), the United States (ChooseFrance program), and Germany (AI and mental illness consortium).
Boris Chaumette, deputy scientific director of PEPR PROPSY, emphasized the virtuous link between the attractiveness of psychiatry and investment in research.
He also discussed the genetic origins of mental illness. We now know of a number of genes that predispose individuals to the onset of disorders. The challenge is to discover new genes and treatments tailored to each disease.
The momentum is there, science is advancing! The challenges for tomorrow: sustaining the forces in place, strengthening collective commitment, and providing sustainable funding for research, so that every patient can benefit from innovations.
See the program for the day here.