Sanofi US Collaborates with Duke University and Massachusetts General Hospital on Big Data and Type 2 Diabetes

BRIDGEWATER, N.J., April 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sanofi US announced today collaborations with the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and, separately, with the Center for Assessment Technology and Continuous Health (CATCH) at Massachusetts General Hospital. The collaborations are designed to create new tools that will help predict how people living with type 2 diabetes adhere to their medication.  

"The DCRI's collaboration with Sanofi has the potential to transform chronic disease population management by analyzing how predictive analytics – big data – might forecast medication adherence and result in more personalized patient adherence programs," said Michael Pencina, PhD, director of biostatistics at the DCRI.

The goal of the collaborations is to improve patient health outcomes, drug development, clinical trial design and quality of care. CATCH and the DCRI are utilizing novel machine learning methods to extract meaningful patient insights. These insights are being captured by large scale use of anonymized individual patient level data and adhere to Sanofi's strict privacy standards. Using these insights, healthcare providers may ensure better outcomes by tailoring their treatment strategies to each patient based on demonstrated similar behaviors.

"CATCH's focus on integrative analytics and phenotypes will allow patients and healthcare professionals to make better informed and more tailored, effective decisions," said Dennis Ausiello, MD, CATCH's Co-Founder and Director. "Collaborations like this will help ensure our work is brought to the discovery and development process far sooner than was ever before possible."

The collaborations are exploring more accurate models that capture non-traditional data measures – including prescription fill, socio-geographic and behavioral. For example, if a geographical community exhibits characteristics that are shown to have a correlation with lower medication adherence, then these characteristics could be used to more effectively tailor approaches to patient engagement. Patient outreach in those communities could be adapted accordingly and intensified. The goal is to better anticipate patient-specific drug adherence, improve prediction of clinical outcomes and guide future clinical trial designs.

"‎The results of this very innovative approach to using all available data, including non-traditional healthcare data, will help to direct the deployment of ever more personalized engagement programs, practical tools and services to enable people living with diabetes to engage more proactively with their treatment and thus achieve more satisfying outcomes," said Peter Juhn, MD, MPH, Vice President, Sanofi Global Diabetes Integrated Care.

About Sanofi
Sanofi, a global healthcare leader, discovers, develops and distributes therapeutic solutions focused on patients' needs. Sanofi has core strengths in diabetes solutions, human vaccines, innovative drugs, consumer healthcare, emerging markets, animal health and Genzyme. Sanofi is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: SAN) and in New York (NYSE: SNY).

Sanofi is the holding company of a consolidated group of subsidiaries and operates in the United States as Sanofi US. For more information on Sanofi US, please visit http://www.sanofi.us and http://www.news.sanofi.us/social-media or call 1-800-981-2491.

About the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI)
The project will be led by the DCRI's Center for Predictive Medicine, which includes faculty and operational experts from the DCRI, the Duke Translational Research Institute, the Duke School of Nursing, and Duke Health Technology Solutions and Sanofi, which includes Leadership from the Global Diabetes Integrated Care and R&D Strategic Initiatives & Science Relations groups.

The DCRI is the largest academic research organization in the world, with a mission to develop and share knowledge that improves the care of patients through innovative clinical research. The DCRI conducts groundbreaking multinational clinical trials, manages major national patient registries, and performs landmark outcomes research. DCRI research spans multiple disciplines, from pediatrics to geriatrics, primary care to subspecialty medicine, and genomics to proteomics. The DCRI also is home to the Duke Databank for Cardiovascular Diseases, the largest and oldest institutional cardiovascular database in the world, which continues to inform clinical decision-making 40 years after its founding.

About The Center for Assessment Technology and Continuous Health (CATCH) 
Based at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and collaborating with various groups at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), CATCH seeks to discover new ways to measure the human condition in health and disease. CATCH has convened a multidisciplinary group of engineers, physicians and industry partners to pioneer new human measurements (phenotypes), as well as the integrative analytic methods needed to interpret these measurements in the context of clinical and genetic data. These phenotypes, particularly those that can be measured in the context of individuals' daily lives, will transform how individuals monitor their own health, and how physicians prevent, diagnose and treat disease.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. These statements include projections and estimates and their underlying assumptions, statements regarding plans, objectives, intentions and expectations with respect to future financial results, events, operations, services, product development and potential, and statements regarding future performance. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "plans" and similar expressions. Although Sanofi's management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Sanofi, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, future clinical data and analysis, including post marketing, decisions by regulatory authorities, such as the FDA or the EMA, regarding whether and when to approve any drug, device or biological application that may be filed for any such product candidates as well as their decisions regarding labelling and other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of such product candidates, the absence of guarantee that the product candidates if approved will be commercially successful, the future approval and commercial success of therapeutic alternatives, the Group's ability to benefit from external growth opportunities, trends in exchange rates and prevailing interest rates, the impact of cost containment initiatives and subsequent changes thereto, the average number of shares outstanding as well as those discussed or identified in the public filings with the SEC and the AMF made by Sanofi, including those listed under "Risk Factors" and "Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in Sanofi's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2015. Other than as required by applicable law, Sanofi does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements.

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