Dana-Farber, Sanofi-aventis Partner on Cancer Research

(National Institutes of Health)

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Belfer Institute of Applied Cancer Science in Boston, Massachusetts and Sanofi-aventis, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris have struck a collaboration and license option agreement to identify and validate new oncology targets for further discovery and development by Sanofi-aventis.

Dana-Farber’s Belfer Institute and Sanofi-aventis scientists will work together on discovering new anticancer drugs targeted at specific patient populations. Much of the research at the Belfer Institute involves discovering and validating therapeutic targets and their clinical context in model systems. That research, says the institute, enables development of drug response biomarkers and supports discovery and development of cancer treatments.

Under the agreement, Dana-Farber will receive $33 million in funding for a minimum of three years, with additional milestone payments and royalties on sales of commercial products as warranted. In return, Sanofi-aventis obtains exclusive access to components of a cancer target identification and validation platform originally developed by Lynda Chin, the Belfer Institute’s scientific director.