Isabelle Ray-Coquard

Isabelle Ray-Coquard, MD, PhD is Head of the Soft Tissue Sarcoma and Gynecologic Cancer Unit at Centre Léon Bérard in Lyon and Professor of Medical Oncology at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1. She is one of the most influential European gynecologic oncologists of her generation, best known internationally for designing and leading the PAOLA-1 trial — a landmark phase III randomized study demonstrating that maintenance olaparib combined with bevacizumab following first-line platinum-taxane-bevacizumab chemotherapy significantly improved progression-free survival in newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer, with the greatest benefit in HRD-positive (including BRCA-mutant) patients. PAOLA-1, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019, established the olaparib-bevacizumab maintenance combination as a regulatory-approved first-line option and repositioned HRD testing as a critical biomarker for treatment selection in frontline ovarian cancer. Professor Ray-Coquard also leads the GINECO (Groupe d'Investigateurs Nationaux pour l'Etude des Cancers de l'Ovaire et du sein) cooperative group, one of Europe's most productive gynecologic oncology trial networks, and is a central figure in ENGOT. Her research extends to rare gynecologic tumor subtypes — she has led international studies in carcinosarcoma, mucinous ovarian cancer, and adult-type granulosa cell tumor, diseases historically excluded from major trials. She has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications and is a frequent invited speaker at ESMO and ASCO.