French drugmaker Sanofi has collaborated with DiCE Molecules to discover potential therapeutics based on unique small molecule discovery platform.
The potential new oral treatments would replace monoclonal antibodies for up to 12 targets that encompass all disease areas of strategic interest to Sanofi.
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Sanofi Sunrise head Dr Kathy Bowdish said: "We are pleased to initiate this collaboration with DiCE and its unique technology platform, which brings the power of selection and enrichment to small molecule discovery.
"We hope this partnership will help deliver essential therapies against currently intractable disease targets, and help patients who otherwise have been unable to receive treatments outside of the inpatient setting.
"This initiative will allow our teams to combine their wealth of knowledge in drug discovery and further strengthens Sanofi’s commitment to open innovation."
Under the five-year collaboration, Sanofi will initially pay $50m to access DiCE’s technology, which selects and optimises drug-like ligands to any given target, beginning with libraries containing billions of individual molecules.
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By GlobalDataThe technology is claimed to restore the libraries to their original ligand concentration after each round of screening, revealing the full landscape of binding molecules and allowing them to easily be selected for enhanced potency, selectivity, and drug-like properties through testing with proprietary assays.
This novel approach may address long-standing chemistry issues, in addition to enabling the replacement of monoclonal antibodies with orally administered medicines.
Sanofi will provide up to $184m in research, clinical and regulatory milestone payments.
