Sanofi and Institut Pasteur Korea Hosted an Open Innovation Forum to Seek Korea’s Possibility to Become a Leader in Healthcare Innovation

- The Forum allowed active discussions on how to facilitate global collaboration models to translate Korea’s basic research excellence into developing therapies for unmet patients’ needs
- Sanofi CEO Christopher A. Viehbacher emphasized the importance of partnership, open innovation and translational medicine as the keys to the biomedical industry’s future

Pangyo, Korea, 5 April 2013 ? Sanofi, a global healthcare company, and Institut Pasteur Korea (IP-K), a leading translational research institute, announced on April 5th that they successfully completed the experts’ forum entitled at the auditorium of Institut Pasteur Korea located in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province. This forum was attended by about 250 key opinion leaders, executives and policy makers from Korean pharmaceutical and biotech companies and academic institutions.

On the occasion of Sanofi’s CEO Christopher A. Viehbacher’s visit to Korea, the forum was designed to discuss Korea’s possibility to become a leading country in healthcare innovation and seek ways to expand global collaboration, while the country’s emerging excellence in basic research is being recognized. In fact, open innovation has become an essential strategy for survival of biopharmaceutical companies across the world in the midst of dramatically decreasing R&D productivity, rising socio-economic burden of medical costs and increasing complexity of science.

In his keynote address, Chris Viehbacher, CEO of Sanofi Group said, “Open innovation is the most fundamental way for Sanofi to access innovation and forms the basis of our strategy. We are ready to partner with the best wherever they may be, in areas where we have the expertise and high unmet patient needs exist.” He also mentioned, “Since Korea has invested in technology innovation in such industries as automobiles, petrochemicals, electronics and IT with its excellent human capital, I see the country has great potential to become a leader in healthcare innovation of the future. We look forward to seeking out partnerships with Korean companies for new businesses beyond the traditional pharmaceutical models, while continuously investing in clinical development of new medicines and help Korean partners go global.”

At this Forum, Sanofi and Institut Pasteur Korea concluded an agreement for comprehensive research to expand various collaborations through open innovation. With this agreement, Institut Pasteur Korea will provide its cutting-edge technologies and innovative assays and Sanofi will contribute its proprietary chemical compound libraries. Together, both parties aim to accelerate first-in-class drug discovery and development. Sanofi and IP-K have previously signed 2 contracts between 2011 and 2012 to jointly develop new therapies for hepatitis B, of which projects are being underway.

Michele Liuzzi, CEO of IP-K, said, “Global pharmaceutical companies have emphasized clinical development to maximize the efficiency and efficacy of new drug candidates. Only lately have they tried to actively introduce translational research programs.” He also added, “By strengthening translational research, basic researchers in close collaboration with clinicians, will be able to fill the gap between basic research and drug development and help predict therapeutic efficacy early in the drug development process. Ultimately, this will have positive effects in meeting patient needs.”

Meanwhile, the Forum was attended by Jerome Pasquier, the French Ambassador to Korea, In Seok Park, Director General of MOHW, Ulf Nehrbass, former CEO of IPK, Dr. Chae Jeiwook at Bioneer and President Oh Se-Jung of Institute for Basic Science(IBS) as special guest speakers and delivered messages to invigorate ‘Open Innovation’.

President Oh Se-Jung expressed, “It is true that Korea experienced a rapid growth thanks to its development of science and technology. It has, however, been behind in developing its original technology while putting more emphasis on import and utilization of advanced science and technology from foreign countries. Since 2008, with the government’s increasing support for R&D funding for basic research, Korea is now seeing its progress in the basic research field, and can hope to be on a better track to create its original technology.” He further added, “This forum can be a new exemplary model where academic institutes and pharmaceutical industries come together to have fruitful discussions concerning the advancements of original technology.”

In addition, CEO Lee Dongho of Korea Drug Development Fund, Vice President Park Sang Chul of Aging Research Center in Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, President Rhee Byung-Geon of Green Cross, and President Yoo Jin-San of PharmAbcine also participated at the panel discussion. There were active exchange of diverse views and shared thoughts among the panelists on practical ways to facilitate translational research and win-win strategies of global partnership.

Having established the ‘Hubs’ in Asia since 2012, an R&D platform that connects the world’s core R&D sites and ecosystems, Sanofi has been reinforcing open innovation and partnership strategy through a decentralized and non-authoritative R&D organization and also focusing on translational medicine. In Korea, Sanofi concluded 8 contracts in joint research projects with local bio-ventures and research institutes in 2012 alone. As a result of it, Sanofi in Korea is currently working on a total of 15 innovative drug targets including co-inventions with local companies.

Funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and Gyeonggi Provence, IP-K is a translational research institute that has built innovative drug technology platforms integrating cutting-edge cell biology, robotics, imaging, miniaturized screening platforms, genomics and medicinal chemistry. IP-K’s novel phenotype-based screening technologies integrate physiological relevant cellular disease models. IP-K has been favorably acknowledged by collaborating pharmaceutical companies around the world as having a fast and cost-effective drug discovery approach, which leads to an increased probability of identifying innovative drug candidates.