October 3, 2014
By Krystle Vermes, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
On Oct. 2, Sanofi announced that Christian Lajoux will be leaving at the end of 2014 after 21 years with the company. Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher made the announcement and said that Lajoux’s plans following the departure from Sanofi have yet to be decided.
The news of Lajoux’s move came as Sanofi announced that it is rolling out a reorganization plan around its team of people who promote drugs in hospitals and hospitals. This plan could result in about 200 employees losing their jobs.
Advancements in Targeted Therapeutics
Despite the shakeup at the helm, Sanofi continues to work on therapeutic solutions to some of the world’s most pressing health issues. On Sept. 17, the company announced a collaboration with MyoKardia to create target therapies for patients living with genetic heart disease.
The collaboration includes three of MyoKardia’s programs, two of which are focused on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The third is situated around dilated cardiomyopathy. In total, the collaboration provides up to $200 million in equity investments, milestone payments and research and development services up to 2018.
“This collaboration illustrates Sanofi’s research and development philosophy for Sunrise projects,” said Elias Zerhouni, President of Global R&D for Sanofi. “It combines in a meaningful way the unique expertise in rare and cardiovascular diseases of our top scientists with that of the best innovators in the world, like MyoKardia’s founders and scientists, to achieve real breakthroughs in medicine.”
HCM and DCM are heritable heart diseases caused by mutations in the genes of proteins responsible for contraction in the heart. Treatments that have been approved for the disease only address the symptoms.
“MyoKardia’s research represents the first hope for targeted treatments that address the primary cause of each patient’s disease,” said Tassos Gianakakos, Chief Executive Officer of MyoKardia. “By genetically defining HCM and DCM into several underlying rare genetic diseases, MyoKardia’s candidate therapies have the potential to be developed far more efficiently than traditional cardiovascular drugs. The collaboration extends MyoKardia’s competitive advantage, allowing advancement of a broad portfolio of important treatments for patients.”
Through the collaboration, Sanofi will lead global development and commercial activities for DCM where it has obtained worldwide rights. The company also has the option to co-promote in the U.S.
