A meeting with Cyrille and Marine from the Comyces Foundation: an initiative supporting childhood cancer patients and their families

On International Childhood Cancer Day (15 February), we caught up with Cyrille and Marine from the Comyces Foundation. We were impressed by their commitment to improving the everyday lives of families affected by childhood cancers, and we wanted to tell our alumni about their work.

EDHEC Alumni: Cyrille, can you tell us how the Comyces Foundation came about?

Cyrille:  Of course. It all began in January 2023, when my two and a half-year-old son Léon was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It was a tremendous shock and completely reconfigured my priorities. At the time, I was an associate in a firm that used to buy out SMEs. In the months that followed the announcement, I reflected on the idea of dedicating all of my time to child patients and their families. The Comyces Foundation  was created in July 2023 under the auspices of Fondation de France. We chose this framework to ensure our project would have a robust and credible structure.

EDHEC Alumni: Marine, what made you decide to join the Foundation?

Marine: After 12 years in the luxury sector, 10 of which were spent at Hermès, I felt the need to imbue my work with greater meaning. When I met Cyrille, his project immediately spoke to me. I joined the Foundation with a role focusing on a scheme known as “A hotel for my parents”, which offers families free accommodation to accompany their sick child. This scheme is one of our primary goals and aims to support families to ensure they remain central in the child's healthcare journey.

EDHEC Alumni: Can you tell us more about this scheme?

Cyrille: The initiative emerged from my own personal experience. During my son’s treatments, I met families who had to sleep in their car or on makeshift beds due to a lack of resources. I also saw parents left in a vulnerable situation after having to give up their work. To meet their urgent needs, we developed a pragmatic solution: make unoccupied hotel rooms available to families with an advantageous tax framework for the hotels. “A hotel for my parents” is an invaluable complement to the parents’ homes, where they have one.

Marine: This programme was put in place to address a problem faced by many families of patients suffering from childhood cancer or other serious childhood illnesses: finding accommodation near hospitals, often in big cities, while coping with the colossal costs and upheaval of their daily life. “A hotel for my parents” allows us to offer them free accommodation through partnerships with hotels. This scheme has already been used to house more than 30 families, with highly positive feedback and a strong pickup in recent months. After an initial test phase run in collaboration with the Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild hospital and OKKO Hôtel (managed by Solenne Devys, also from EDHEC) in which 75 overnight stays were offered free of charge between May and November 2024, we are now picking up the pace with the involvement of other hotels and hospitals: 95 additional night stays have been arranged in the last two months.

EDHEC Alumni: What are the main difficulties you faced in getting this project up and running?

Cyrille: Convincing hospitals to sign agreements and explaining the new model to hotel owners was no mean feat. Hospital administration can be quite complex, and you need a certain amount of patience to persevere and get them to sign up to the project! But we now collaborate with establishments like the Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild hospital, the Necker hospital for child patients and the Curie Institute, and we're seeing the direct impact this has on families: the testimonials we have received encourage us to go even further. We hope to extend this scheme nationally with the inclusion of hospitals and hotels as part of an expanded territorial network.

EDHEC Alumni: the second pillar of the Comyces Foundation is support for medical research. Can you tell us more?

Cyrille: Absolutely. This is a crucial pillar as medical research, especially in paediatrics, suffers from an acute lack of funding. We have decided to focus on projects with a tangible and strong impact. For example, we have helped finance a cutting-edge screening machine that can quickly analyse existing molecules to identify potential personalised treatments using a single tumoral cell taken from a child. This is a major step forward that can save valuable time in the fight against cancer.

Marine: We also support research on extremely rare and lethal pathologies like rhabdoid tumours. Although these projects are still in the preclinical phase, they carry huge promise. What makes us stand out is that we demand detailed monitoring of the way funds are used. We want to be certain that each euro invested has a direct impact, whether in speeding up treatments or improving chances of survival.

Cyrille: This pragmatism comes from our backgrounds. As an entrepreneur, I'm used to measuring outcomes. We adopt the same approach at the Foundation. This level of rigour enables us to develop robust solutions in collaboration with our donors, guaranteeing them complete transparency.

EDHEC Alumni: How did you get involved in International Childhood Cancer Day?

Cyrille: This day is a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness. We use it to share our story and reach out to new partners and donors. But for us, the battle is a daily one: each family we help reminds us how important it is to pursue our efforts.

EDHEC Alumni: How can EDHEC alumni support the Foundation?

Cyrille: There are many ways to help! We especially need to raise funds to achieve our missions and develop our projects. We would appreciate anyone who can put us in touch with businesses where the EDHEC community is represented so we can try to convince them to support us, especially with financial contributions. Every little bit makes a difference!