French pharmaceutical producer Sanofi and Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology (IME), a section of the German applied research thinktank Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, have established a natural product center of excellence to accelerate discovery and development of new therapies for infectious diseases. The drugmaker and the institute said they will try to identify and optimize novel naturally occurring chemical or biological compounds, whereby the approach may also be extended to other indications such as diabetes, pain and rare diseases. Here, they point out, substances derived from natural products have played an important role in treatment and disease prevention.

As part of the collaboration in what will be known as Fraunhofer Natural Product Center of Excellence, Sanofi will share its strain collection. This it claims as one of the world's largest, consisting of more than 100,000 different microorganisms. The company also will contribute its knowhow in anti-infectives. Elias Zerhouni, president of global R&D at Sanofi, said the cooperation will be unique as internal and external scientists will work together as one team on common projects with the objective of bringing new medicines to patients suffering from infectious diseases.

"The project goes far beyond drug discovery because access to Sanofi's natural product collection will also create value for other industries with significant economic opportunities," added Rainer Fischer, senior executive director at Fraunhofer IME.