Sanofi US Announces Collaborate Activate Innovation Challenge Winner

BRIDGEWATER, N.J., Dec. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Sanofi US announced today that Registries for All Diseases has been selected as the winner of the Collaborate Activate Innovation Challenge.

Registries for All Diseases will receive an award of $300,000 to create a comprehensive, crowdsourced, cross-disease registry to help accelerate translational research for over 1,000 diseases. The team consists of partnering organizations Genetic Alliance, CFIDS Association of America, National Psoriasis Foundation, and the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

"Data can accelerate research and services, help us get better patient outcomes, and save money," said Sharon Terry, President and CEO of Genetic Alliance, "But right now, this data is in silos and is not easily accessible to researchers. By creating a patient-centered research network that spans many diseases, people will be empowered to participate in their own health and can contribute data to advance the development of disease treatments." The registry infrastructure will include robust privacy controls, allowing individuals to allow or decline access to data requests.

Registry for All Diseases was one of four teams selected to partake in the final phase of Collaborate Activate. Each of the finalists received a $25,000 award and mentorship from Sanofi team members and healthcare experts, drawing on the mentors' insight to refine their solutions before presenting to the judges. This phase afforded the finalists the unique opportunity to access Sanofi's expertise in preparation for a Finalist Event at the Newseum in Washington, DC, during which each team presented its solution to an independent, expert panel of judges. Sanofi received submissions from over 280 partnering organizations for solutions to help patients engage in their health across a broad range of therapeutic areas.

"Collaborate Activate embodies our commitment to improving health outcomes for patients by uniting the advocacy community to accelerate innovation," said Anne Whitaker, President, North America Pharmaceuticals at Sanofi US. "Registries for All Diseases exemplifies the collaborative nature of the challenge by creating a multi-tiered solution that captures both common data across all diseases and disease-specific data, showcasing the expertise of each partnering organization."

Collaborate Activate is an initiative of Sanofi's Partners in Patient Health, which first announced the challenge in May 2012 at an event in Washington, DC. The challenge required two or more groups to collaborate in order to qualify for the contest and designed to promote sharing of complementary resources among partnering organizations

"Creating a registry of patients is the single most valuable action a rare disease community can take," said David Meeker, MD, President and CEO of Genzyme, a Sanofi company. "The registry provides critical disease knowledge which makes that disease easier to study, increasing the probability a treatment can be developed. We congratulate the Registries for All Diseases team."

Sanofi US established the challenge with the belief that bringing together patient advocates creates a multiplier effect, and leads to innovative ideas that would not otherwise be possible. Registries for All Diseases proves how powerful this multiplier effect can be: together, the team intends to reach over 9,000 health organizations and 1,200 disease advocacy organizations. Utilizing data from such a broad network has the potential to have a tremendous impact on patient outcomes.

The runner-up in the Collaborate Activate Innovation Challenge is 21st Century Brain Trust, a self-administered, clinical-grade cognitive testing app to detect asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease. In addition to anticipating the onset of Alzheimer's, one of the team's larger goals is to support a dialogue based on brain health rather than brain disease, empowering people to take control of their cognitive well-being. The team, comprised of the Geoffrey Beene Gives Back Alzheimer's Initiative, the American Health Assistance Foundation, and the USAgainstAlzheimers Network, will receive $100,000 to further develop its solution.

To learn more about the Challenge, visit www.collaborateactivate.com, or visit the Collaborate Activate blog.

Sanofi US "Partners in Patient Health"

Sanofi US's Partners in Patient Health is a novel approach to partnering with the advocacy community by connecting people, ideas, and solutions to focus on critical issues that are of high importance and common across a wide range of advocates dedicated to advancing patient health.

About Sanofi

Sanofi, a global and diversified healthcare leader, discovers, develops and distributes therapeutic solutions focused on patients' needs. Sanofi has core strengths in the field of healthcare with seven growth platforms: diabetes solutions, human vaccines, innovative drugs, rare diseases, consumer healthcare, emerging markets, animal health and the new 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 or call 1-800-981-2491.

Sanofi US is also on Twitter and Facebook. Visit us at https://twitter.com/SanofiUS and http://www.facebook.com/sanofiUS.

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 policies 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, 2011. Other than as required by applicable law, Sanofi does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements.

Contacts:

Media Relations
Jack Cox
Tel.: 908 981 5280
[email protected]                                             

SOURCE Sanofi US