Paris, France, and Frankfurt and Munich, Germany - January 15, 2014
-Sanofi (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Europe's leading organization for applied research, announced today the creation of a natural product center of excellence to accelerate the discovery and development of new therapies to treat infectious diseases, the second leading cause of mortality worldwide1 accounting for 10 million deaths in 2011.
Under the agreement, Sanofi
and Fraunhofer IME (Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology) will
collaborate to identify and optimize novel naturally occurring chemical or
biological compounds, mainly in the field of infectious diseases. Penicillin,
for example, is just one of a number of antibiotics derived from natural
products. The approach may also be extended to other indications such as
diabetes, pain and rare diseases, where natural products derived substances
have proven to play an important role in treatment and disease prevention.
Sanofi will share its strain collection, one of the world's largest, consisting
of over a hundred thousand different micro-organisms, with Fraunhofer, and in
addition is bringing its know-how in anti-infective research.
"There is a great
medical need in fighting infectious diseases globally. This is critical given
the rise of antibiotic resistance worldwide especially in the hospital setting
with increasingly frequent serious, often life-threatening infections, where
few advances have been made in the recent years," said Dr. Elias Zerhouni,
President, Global R&D at Sanofi. "This cooperation with Fraunhofer is
unique as internal and external scientists will work together as one team on
common projects, in shared labs to acquire new knowledge with the objective to
bring new medicines to patients suffering from infectious diseases."
"This first Fraunhofer
Natural Product Center of Excellence is not only a win-win project for both
partners but goes far beyond drug discovery, because the access to Sanofi's
natural product collection will also create value for other industries with
significant economic opportunities", said Prof. Dr. Rainer Fischer, Senior
Executive Director from Fraunhofer IME.
The joint team of
scientists will be led by Prof. Dr. Peter Hammann, Sanofi R&D, head of
External Innovation of the Infectious Diseases Unit, in close co-ordination
with Prof. Dr. Andreas Vilcinskas, Division Director Fraunhofer IME, Giessen,
and will work together on analyzing the genetic make-up of the strains,
cultivating them under various conditions, stimulating them to produce active
substances and investigating their effects. The hope is that extensive
understanding is gained through this partnership aiming at finding new
antibiotics to treat serious infectious diseases.