European-based Big Pharma company Sanofi is expanding its foray in digital health through a partnership with computational disease modeling company CytoReason.
The agreement will give Sanofi researchers access to CytoReason’s platform and disease models to study inflammatory bowel disease. Computation disease modeling combines data from various sources aiming to retrieve actionable insights.
While specific financial terms were not released, the companies described the deal as worth more than $2 million. Sanofi and CytoReason have worked together on a similar project involving asthma since 2020.
David Harel, CytoRason’s CEO and co-founder, said there are numerous other disease areas where similar models could be developed.
“You need scale,” said David Harel, CytoRason’s CEO and co-founder. “The integration of all of the different types [of data] gives you the depth of understanding of how the disease mechanism is affecting the different groups.”
Sanofi isn’t the only Big Pharma to work with CytoReason in this capacity. In September 2022, Pfizer made a $20 million equity investment into CytoReason with options to license the company’s platform and fund supplementary project support. That deal total amount is worth up to $110 million over the next five years.
Last year, Sanofi inked a $30 million agreement with DarioHealth, a digital therapeutics company, to develop solutions on Dario’s platform and expand the commercial reach of its products in the health plan and employer markets. With that particular deal, DarioHealth President Rick Anderson said Sanofi is using digital health to directly engage with and sell products to consumers.
“They want to further their penetration in the digital health market,” Anderson said. “They came to us and said we don’t want this to be about medication or our devices, it’s about getting a foothold in the digital health market.”
Pfizer, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb, AmerisourceBergen and other Big Pharma companies have all made digital health plays in the last few months.
