Sanofi-Aventis expands into microRNA sector in up to $750 million deal with Regulus

French drug major Sanofi-Aventis has increased its research interest into the microRNA sector, signing a strategic alliance with USA-based Regulus Therapeutics to discover, develop and commercialize microRNA therapeutics which could earn the latter as much as $750 million.

Under the terms of the deal, Regulus will receive a $25 million upfront fee and a future $10 million equity investment subject to mutual agreement on company valuation. The alliance could be valued at over $750 million when taking into account upfront payments, equity investment, research funding, and potential near-term preclinical, clinical and commercial milestone payments for multiple products, says the French company.

The alliance will initially focus on the therapeutic area of fibrosis. MicroRNAs (micro-RiboNucleic Acid) are a new class of small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression by interfering with translation or stability of target messenger RNA transcripts. Endogenous microRNAs regulate the expression of over one-third of all human genes. The association of microRNA dysfunction with disease phenotypes has given rise to an entirely new class of pharmaceutically relevant targets.