Warp Drive Bio Achieves Key Milestone in Antibiotics Collaboration with Sanofi

Warp Drive Bio, Inc., a life sciences company developing therapeutics that exploit the molecules and mechanisms of nature, announced today that it has reached a pre-specified milestone in the antibiotic discovery program within the company’s research collaboration with Sanofi. From here, Sanofi will assume all preclinical and clinical research and development efforts for the novel aminoglycoside antibiotic candidates that have been discovered by Warp Drive. This program is one of several natural product-based programs that Warp Drive Bio is pursuing as a part of the company’s broader discovery efforts utilizing its novel Genome Mining technology platform.

“Antibiotic resistance is a major global public health threat, and Warp Drive is committed to deploying our unique Genome Mining Platform to discover novel medicines that address this challenge,” said Laurence E. Reid, Chief Executive Officer at Warp Drive Bio. “With the hand-off of this program to Sanofi, Warp Drive will now focus on our other programs, both anti-infectives and for other diseases, deploying our proprietary Genome Mining and SMART™ platforms. In particular, we continue to advance our RAS cancer program, which is also partnered with Sanofi.”

In January 2016, Warp Drive Bio entered into a research agreement with Sanofi that included a collaboration focused on the discovery and development of novel aminoglycoside antibiotics to treat drug-resistant Gram-negative infections. Warp Drive is eligible to receive milestones and royalties on the program. The collaboration is an outgrowth of Sanofi’s Sunrise initiative, a strategic partnership model that seeks to invest in early stage opportunities that align with Sanofi’s expert development and commercialization abilities.