Sanofi enters deal with Scripps

Sanofi-aventis(S-A) has entered into a partnership with Scripps Genomic Medicine, a research division of the $2.2bn not-for-profit San Diego-based community health system.

The alliance will focus on research and development initiatives in personalised medicine. The deal calls for sanofi-aventis Recherche & Developpement, a subsidiary of sanofi-aventis Group, to provide up to three grants a year as a form of flexible financing for research by Scripps investigators. In exchange, sanofi-aventis will gain non-exclusive rights to research tools developed through the grants, as well as preferred access to Scripps laboratory facilities for work conducted in support of sponsored research agreements and discoveries in personalised medicine. 

The two companies will also organise an annual research symposium intended to give sanofi-aventis access to Scripps research programmes that can contribute to the company's priority areas.

Scripps Genomic Medicine is genotyping and storing genetic data on thousands of diverse volunteers culled from the 500,000 patients that the health system treats each year. The information is intended to be used in drug discovery programmes and gene-specific clinical trials that target groups of 500 subjects or less who share a particular gene variant. The targeted trials are expected to shorten drug development time and to lead to therapies that are safer and more effective for particular subgroups of patients.