Under the collaboration, the Abu Dhabi health regulator and Sanofi will develop data generation and population research projects for late-stage breast cancer, liquid tumours and blood disorders
Sanofi collaborates with Abu Dhabi DoH. (Credit: PRNewswire/The Department of Health - Abu Dhabi)
Abu Dhabi’s healthcare regulator Department of Health (DoH) has entered into a partnership with French healthcare firm Sanofi in four strategic healthcare areas.
Through the partnership, Abu Dhabi aims to strengthen its ongoing efforts to become a life science destination and an innovation hub.
Under the collaboration, DoH and Sanofi will develop data generation and population research projects for late-stage breast cancer, liquid tumours and blood disorders.
Also, the two parties will jointly create a high-risk population screening project that will support the detection of rare metabolic diseases utilising artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
The collaboration also aims to open a Supply Chain Academy, which would provide and enhance knowledge related to the vaccine supply chain.
The academy is planned to be led by an International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management (IFPSM) certified entity.
Sanofi Greater Gulf speciality care MCO lead and general manager Jean-Paul Scheuer said: “Our collaboration with the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi reflects our deep commitment to improving people’s lives, with our new-generation medicines, ongoing investments in research and support to healthcare providers across the region.
“We hope our partnership with DoH – Abu Dhabi will address the urgent health issues facing the UAE and positively impact its healthcare sector.
“We look forward to sharing our expertise and working collaboratively to achieve shared goals, and serve patients, communities, and society at large.”
In a separate development, Sanofi has entered into a research partnership with Aqemia, a French pharmatech company leveraging artificial intelligence and quantum physics.
The current agreement extends the existing research collaboration between the two companies, initiated at the end of 2020.
Sanofi has previously leveraged Aqemia’s technologies for the design and discovery of novel molecules in several of its oncology projects.
Under the expanded partnership, Aqemia will deploy its AI-based design capabilities to create optimised molecules with potency and selectivity in an oncology project.
Traditionally, an AI-based technology requires experimental data to train the algorithms before starting the design process.
Aqemia claimed that it would commence the drug discovery project by generating its own data with quantum and statistical physics-based calculations.
Aqemia CEO and co-founder Maximilien Levesque said: “We are really proud of the results obtained in the first Sanofi-Aqemia oncology collaboration and are very excited to continue working together to accelerate important projects in oncology.
“This follow-up of our first collaboration project with Sanofi, a global leader in the Pharmaceutical industry, demonstrates our ability to quickly generate novel potent and selective compounds for a given target, and we can’t wait to scale it up to dozens of drug discovery projects.”