Sanofi and AstraZeneca Exchange More Than 200,000 Chemical Compounds

Sanofi and AstraZeneca Exchange
More Than 200,000 Chemical Compounds

Paris, France - November 20, 2015 - Sanofi and AstraZeneca today announced a direct exchange of 210,000 compounds from their respective, proprietary compound libraries. The exchange represents a novel, open innovation model of collaboration between two leading pharmaceutical companies. It will enhance the chemical diversity of the compound collections of both companies and allow each company to screen a broader, more diverse chemical space as the starting point in the search for new, small-molecule medicines.
  
The companies have selected the compounds to exchange based on differences from those previously existing in their own libraries. Chemical structures and synthetic procedures will be shared to facilitate the use of these compounds. The compounds will be exchanged in sufficient quantity to enable the receiving company to carry out high throughput screening (HTS) for several years to determine whether they are active against specific biological targets. If a compound matches a target (a "hit"), it may go through several modifications to optimise its structure before being classified as a "lead compound" and potentially taken forward through development.

"Sanofi is committed to open innovation in our R&D platforms because we recognize that collaboration is the foundation of every medical breakthrough," said Elias Zerhouni, President, Global R&D, Sanofi. "We are happy to work with other companies if it will speed the discovery of new life-saving or life-enhancing therapies for patients. We believe that this collaboration will increase our capacity to deliver innovative solutions that have the potential to add significant medical value and transform lives."

"This is a highly innovative agreement which speaks to our open innovation approach," said Mene Pangalos, Executive Vice President, Innovative Medicines & Early Development at AstraZeneca. "We have worked hard to enrich our compound library in recent years and this exchange, which is by far the largest we have achieved, enables us to significantly increase its diversity. Most importantly, it will accelerate our ability to identify unique starting points that could become new medicines for patients."