Centre International De Recherche SUR LE Cancer

Centre International De Recherche SUR LE Cancer, doing business as Iarc, is an international non-profit research organization and World Health Organization specialized agency based in Lyon, France, that acts as a federal grant recipient conducting cancer epidemiology, biomarker development, and cancer prevention research funded primarily by the National Cancer Institute. Iarc operates as a prime recipient on 84% of its recent federal awards and as a sub-recipient on 16%, with no federal contracts held. The organization competes in full-and-open federal grant competitions without SBA set-aside designations.

Iarc's federal customer base is highly concentrated within the National Cancer Institute, which accounts for 46 of 70 awards (84% of the top customer ranking by count) and $839 thousand in combined potential value. The National Institutes of Health broadly, including the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the NIH Office of the Director, and other NIH components, provides the vast majority of funding. Secondary customers include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. The organization's federal footprint spans 88 awards across 14 distinct customer agencies since 1985.

Representative prime recipient work includes a $546,542 project grant from the National Cancer Institute awarded August 11, 2026, to develop a proteogenomic framework for precision lung cancer screening, refining the INTEGRAL protein risk model to improve lung cancer detection eligibility; a cooperative agreement from the National Cancer Institute awarded April 1, 2024, to lead the Opioid Cohort Consortium investigating opioid-cancer links across 19 data sources and 1.7 million individuals in the U.S., Europe, and Australia; and a project grant from the National Cancer Institute awarded August 15, 2023, to develop an artificial intelligence system for cervical cancer screening and triage in low- and middle-income countries using infrared spectroscopy and image analysis. Iarc also serves as prime recipient on a five-year project grant from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, awarded July 1, 2022, to produce the IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention, evidence-based evaluations of cancer prevention interventions used by national and international health agencies for policy development.

Recent sub-recipient work positions Iarc as a biomarker and data-analytics contributor to university-led grants. Iarc provides patient samples, molecular analysis, and viral genetics analysis as a sub-recipient to Washington University on an HPV-related oropharynx cancer prognostic biomarker validation project (sub-awards dated September 23, 2025, and March 31, 2026). Iarc contributes metabolomic analysis and gastric cancer case-control samples to Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute (sub-award April 16, 2025) and biliary tract cancer metabolome screening data to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (sub-awards dated February 26, 2024, July 10, 2024 — twice — and May 22, 2025).

Activity has remained modest and variable — three awards in 2022, peaking at six in 2024 — with four awards reaching completion inside the next twenty-four months. Combined potential value across all 88 awards is $1.5 million; however, combined dollars obligated total $80.8 million, indicating substantial realized revenue from past performance and active grant execution despite a modest potential-value ceiling. The organization's work portfolio centers on cancer biomarker research, epidemiological data harmonization, molecular analysis, and cancer prevention evidence synthesis, with project grants and cooperative agreements as the primary federal vehicle.