Sanofi-aventis, Regeneron Expand Antibody Pact

Sanofi-aventis and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. entered into agreements to expand and extend their existing global collaboration established November 2007, to discover, develop, and commercialize therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.

Sanofi-aventis will increase its annual funding from $100million to $160 million beginning in 2010, and the research funding will extend through 2017. The companies plan to advance an average of four to five antibodies into clinical development each year. Sanofi-aventis has an option to extend the discovery program for an additional three years. Regeneron will contribute its VelocImmune technology to the collaboration and its next generation technologies for antibody generation.

“The first two years of our collaboration with sanofi-aventis have been extremely productive, with five VelocImmune human antibodies in or entering clinical development,” commented Leonard S. Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Regeneron. “The expansion of our collaboration provides even greater resources over a longer time horizon and will boost our efforts to build a deep pipeline of new human antibody product candidates. Sanofi-aventis is an ideal partner with the expertise and global reach to collaborate with us on our mission to bring important new medicines to patients around the world.”

“This collaboration expansion demonstrates sanofi-aventis’ commitment to become a key player in the field of monoclonal antibodies and our confidence in our partner Regeneron,” declared Marc Cluzel, executive vice president, R&D, sanofi-aventis. “It will further fuel our product pipeline and will allow us to bring multiple antibody product candidates into the clinic, thereby significantly increasing the chance of providing patients access to innovative drugs in various therapeutic areas.”

To date, the two companies have advanced four therapeutic antibodies into clinical development and have filed an IND for a fifth additional antibody.