French drugmaker Sanofi has agreed to form a three-year strategic partnership on drug development with Ludwig-Maximilians-University and the university clinic of Munich, Germany.

Focus of the joint R&D will be indications such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and infectious diseases, along with transnational technologies and models that enable a better analysis of the extent to which therapeutic approaches can be applied in clinical practice.

The prospective partners first collaborated in 2012 on a special project to examine the function of beta cells - insulin-producing pancreatic cells in progressive type 2 diabetes. The goal of the research is to better understand the process according to which these cells gradually stop functioning as the disease progresses and thus find a therapy to regenerate them.

As part of the cooperation, researchers will present their projects and a steering committee will identify those deemed to be of joint interest to the partners and agree on a distribution of funding.