Sanofi to collaborate with UCSF on diabetes research
pharmafile | January 11, 2012 | News story | Research and Development | RNA interference, Sanofi, UCSF, academic alliance, diabetes
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Sanofi are to launch a new collaboration in diabetes research, focusing on the field of RNA interference.
The new $3.1 million alliance aims to identify drug targets that could lead to new therapies for both type I and type II diabetes.
The 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 I diabetes and often produce too little insulin in type II – with Sanofi researchers who are experienced in developing potential drug candidates into actual therapies.
“This is a true partnership between scientists with very different strengths,” said Matthias Hebrok, director of the UCSF Diabetes Center. “UCSF is known for its deep understanding of the underlying biology of diabetes, while Sanofi has great expertise in screening compounds, identifying which molecules have potential, and moving them along to develop a new drug. Such an endeavor is almost impossible to accomplish in a single academic laboratory. Thus, both partners profit from the expertise of the other group.”
The alliance is the university’s third collaboration with Sanofi, following brain trauma and oncology research projects launched last year. The two organisations signed a master agreement in January 2011 to work together in translating academic science into potential new therapies.
The collaboration is the first 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.
“Sanofi is pleased to collaborate with the Diabetes Center at UCSF to combine expertise in employing new technologies for the development of innovative diabetes therapies,” said Pierre Chancel, senior vice president, Diabetes Division, Sanofi.
“The potential resulting drug discovery projects will supplement our integrated solutions model for diabetes management and help Sanofi continue to deliver best-in-class solutions to people living with diabetes.”
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, 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, 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.
UCSF and its Diabetes Center have a long history of breakthroughs in diabetes and beta-cell research, spanning from the first cloning of the insulin gene to the first clinical studies blocking autoimmune destruction of beta cells. Diabetes Center researchers and their affiliated members are renowned experts in their respective fields: Immunology, b-cell Biology, Islet & Pancreas Transplantation, and RNAi/microRNAs.
Andrew McConaghie
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