Sanofi and MyoKardia announce heart disease research collaboration

Sanofi has announced a new collaboration with MyoKardia that aims to discover and develop first-in-class targeted therapeutics for heritable heart diseases.

MyoKardia, a specialist developer of precision therapies for genetic heart disease, will ally with Sanofi to find new ways of treating cardiomyopathies, the most common forms of heart muscle disease.

This work will encompass three programmes, two of which will focus on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, while the other is focused on dilated cardiomyopathy. The alliance will provide up to $200 million (122 million pounds) in equity investments, milestone payments and research and development services through to 2018.

The partnership comes as part of Sanofi's Sunrise initiative, a strategic model that seeks to invest in early-stage opportunities that align with the company's expert development and commercialisation capabilities.

Dr Elias Zerhouni, president for global research and development for Sanofi, said the project "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 … to achieve real breakthroughs in medicine".

This comes after the company allied with MannKind on the global development and commercialisation of Afrezza, a new insulin therapy for type 1 and 2 diabetes.