Strategic alliance between Center for Genomic Regulation and Sanofi
This agreement to carry out basic research projects in Barcelona will initially last three years.
By Biocat
The Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi —whose Spanish headquarters is located in Barcelona— will share scientific expertise and knowledge over the coming three years in order to explore new ways to evaluate translational medicine, from basic research through new ways to treat patients.
The collaboration agreement was presented this morning by Minister for the Economy and Knowledge Andreu Mas-Colell, CRG Director Luis Serrano, Sanofi-Iberia President and CEO Marc-Antoine Lucchini and Sanofi Head of R&D Patrick Tricoli at the CRG headquarters in Barcelona.
Mas-Colell remarked to representatives of the science and business community, “an event like today’s shows that we are on the right track, as it strengthens Catalonia ability to integrate into the global economic dynamic.”
Luis Serrano: "A center like the CRG must ensure that its research has a positive impact on human health and national economies"
Dr. Luis Serrano stressed that “research cannot remain distanced from the needs of society. Biology is getting ever closer to medicine and a center like the CRG must ensure that its research has a positive impact on human health and national economies. Yet, we cannot do this alone and we need to collaborate with strategic partners for this purpose.”
The first four research projects that will be started up are devoted to discovering innovative therapeutic approaches for infectious diseases, developing novel drug delivery systems using synthetic biology, deciphering cellular trans-differentiation pathways related to disease, and identifying original targets from unexplored genomic transcription mechanisms. Luis Serrano said that this research "will help us better understand diseases like tuberculosis and cancer and to develop new therapeutic solutions for their treatment.”
“This collaboration with the CRG is a multi-disciplinary approach with our internal Exploratory Unit and a major R&D center in Europe, aimed at accelerating the pace of translating groundbreaking science into validated concepts that will lead to health solutions for patients and create value added for public investment in basic research,” explained the executives from Sanofi.
This alliance will undoubtedly boost economic growth in the biomedical sector in Catalonia.