Salk Institute signs strategic alliance agreement with Sanofi-Aventis

For a period of up to five years, the Sanofi-Aventis regenerative medicine program (SARP) will sponsor institute-wide discovery grants in promising research areas that address the organizations’ mutual interests.

SARP provides for long-term, multiple-participant collaborations between Salk and Sanofi-Aventis scientists, allowing both groups to benefit from each other’s specific areas of expertise and potentially develop further partnerships. SARP will also provide unrestricted support for the institute’s stem cell core facility.

Further collaboration and scientific exchange is expected to be reinforced through annual Salk/Sanofi-Aventis research retreats and extended working lab visits between scientists from both organizations.

Marc Cluzel, senior vice president of R&D at Sanofi-Aventis, said: “Our goal is to advance scientific knowledge, mostly in stem cell research, and apply major discoveries made under this strategic alliance toward diagnostics or therapies for human disease. We believe one way this can be expedited is through a collaborative research agreement in which the talents and expertise from Salk and Sanofi-Aventis are joined in an environment that favors creativity and early access to sciences.”