close

Agreements

Date: 2012-01-10

Type of information: R&D agreement

Compound: drug targets that could lead to new therapies for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Company: Sanofi (France) University of California, San Francisco (UCSF - USA)

Therapeutic area: Metabolic diseases

Type agreement:

R&D

Action mechanism:

Disease: type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Details:

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has signed an alliance with Sanofi  to share expertise in diabetes research and identify drug targets that could lead to new therapies for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.The $3.1 million collaboration will bring together scientists in three UCSF labs with deep understanding of the biology of beta cells – insulin-producing cells that are destroyed in type 1 diabetes and often produce too little insulin in type 2 – with Sanofi researchers who are experienced in developing potential drug candidates into actual therapies. Together, the team will assess and validate potential drug targets from a UCSF library of roughly 100,000 small interference RNAs (siRNA) – molecules that play a crucial role in turning on and off genes, including the gene that produces insulin. They also will identify Sanofi compounds that might be effective in regulating those molecules, study the impact those compounds have on UCSF laboratory models of diabetes and assess their therapeutic potential.The initial project, intended as a pilot for broader joint research into diabetes, will operate under the oversight of an expert panel from UCSF and Sanofi, and focus on beta cells, drawing on the expertise of three renowned UCSF Diabetes Center researchers and their laboratories: 

•Michael McManus, PhD, a molecular biologist and expert in microRNA and the way genes are expressed, or turned into genetic products such as insulin and other proteins;
•Hebrok, an expert on beta-cell biology and development who holds the UCSF Hurlbut-Johnson Distinguished Professorship in Diabetes Research; and
•Michael German, MD, an expert on beta-cell function and how cells transcribe DNA into RNA to create proteins, who is clinical director of the Diabetes Center and holds the Justine K. Schreyer Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research.

The alliance is the university’s third collaboration with Sanofi, alongside brain trauma and oncology research launched last year, since the two signed a master agreement in January 2011 to work together in translating academic science into potential new therapies in pain, inflammation and cancer. Master agreements lay out the fundamental terms of research collaborations, align with the university\'s academic mission including broad publication rights, and form part of a core strategy for the UCSF Office of Innovation, Technology and Alliances to expedite that “bench-to-bedside” research.

This also is the first collaboration of its kind for the UCSF Diabetes Center, extending beyond simpler, funded-research agreements to create a two-way partnership in which scientists on both sides contribute technology and expertise to identify drug targets and test their potential.

Financial terms:

Latest news:

Is general: Yes