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Exclusive Life Science Feature To get closer to academic basic sciences, Sanofi has been that occurred in the early 1990s," he said. These breakthroughs establishing an external innovation network of research part"gave us the impression that we could cure human disease in nerships with major academic institutions. "Our goal is to creanimal models." ate synergies and intellectual collaboration that are of mutual SECRECY NOW SIGN OF WEAKNESS benefit," he said. Zerhouni stressed what many people in the industry have been Sanofi's external innovation network "is fundamentally difsaying recently — there needs to be more collaboration, partferent from what pharma companies have done in the past," nerships, and open innovation throughout the industry. That Zerhouni pointed out. Rather than paying the university for secrecy he referenced earlier is now considered a sign of weakaccess to a particular lab's research data and then walking ness because it impedes progress. "Times have changed, and away, the company is establishing "non-mercenary" collaborait is no longer about who owns the data, but how to solve the tions between the "best and brightest scientists at Sanofi and problem faster," he explained. the best and brightest in academia," he said. To eliminate the barThe company's diarier of secrecy and stimbetes partnership with ulate open innovation, University of California at Zerhouni has hired sevSan Francisco (UCSF) is eral academic "stars" one example of Sanofi's Soon after joining Sanofi as its president of global R&D; in 2011, Elias Zerhouni, M.D., who bring their culture approach to extersaid he evaluated and then trimmed the company's list of compounds under developof open inquiry and their nal innovation. "This ment to ensure that the company's resources were being applied to the most promising networks. Zerhouni and is a true partnership projects with the highest likelihood of success. He also accelerated the pace of the the other scientists whose between scientists with company's development of one of the most promising projects: the PCSK9 antibody, a reputations were made in very different strengths," cholesterol-lowering agent that he described as the prototype example of "terrific sciacademia tap their own said Matthias Hebrok, ence leading to a terrific product." professional networks to Ph.D., director of the Because the project was accelerated, PCSK9's development from target discovery to establish Sanofi's innoUCSF Diabetes Center. Phase 3 has required only 10 years. If proved safe and effective and approved by the vation partnerships with "UCSF is known for its FDA, the PCSK9 antibody, a fully human monoclonal antibody drug, will be a first-ingovernment and univerdeep understanding of class therapeutic agent. sity labs. the underlying biology The antibody is based on the 2003 discovery of a physician-geneticist in France While the Sanofi scienof diabetes, while Sanofi who studied the genetics of family members who died from cardiovascular disease tists who have devoted has great expertise in at an early age. The physician linked the family's high blood-cholesterol levels to a their careers to pharmascreening compounds, "gain-of-function" variant of the PCSK9 gene, which encodes a protein whose actions ceutical R&D; are expected identifying which molinfluence blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called "bad cholesterol." to replace secrecy with ecules have potential, Subsequently, a U.S. researcher identified a "loss-of-function" variant of the same gene open inquiry, the academand moving them along in a subset of 300 African-Americans with very low levels of blood cholesterol. ic researchers who have to develop a new drug. joined Sanofi must adapt Such an endeavor is to a corporate culture and almost impossible to learn the rigor of the translational process with their new colaccomplish in a single academic laboratory. Thus, both partleagues. "It is an enormous challenge with a steep learning curve, ners profit from the expertise of the other group." but it can provide the joy of seeing the research 'translated' to a Partnerships with academic labs are not unique to Sanofi or potential and even possibly an actual treatment," he said. the industry. In fact, they once were much more commonplace Those researchers are not abandoning academia, he pointed out. but vanished when the industry turned inward, adopting a cul"Sanofi scientists who left academia to join the company still have ture of secrecy, Zerhouni said. "The secrecy came from an era the opportunity to work with academic researchers as part of when R&D; was taken over by considerations such as intellecthe company's external partnerships," he said. tual property and the sense that biology would be understood Zerhouni said he does not regard Sanofi's new approach to in isolation," he explained. R&D; as a model for the biopharmaceutical industry. "I don't "R&D; in pharma has been isolating itself for 20 years, thinking have the ambition to develop an R&D; model to guide the that animal models would be highly predictive," he explained. whole industry. If what I do works at Sanofi, it will be adopted. In addition, the entire ecosystem, not just industry researchers, If it doesn't, it will be forgotten." became arrogant as a result of the "phenomenal breakthroughs TARGET DISCOVERY TO PHASE 3: 10 YEARS 34 LifeScienceLeader.com August 2013