Sanofi-Aventis has entered into a strategic alliance with the Scripps Genomic Medicine division of Scripps Health, to advance research and development initiatives in the field of individualized medicine.

The move follows several other recent alliances forged by Sanofi and other large pharmaceutical companies, which are putting greater resources into partnerships with academic institutions, private research institutes and small biotech companies as they increasingly look outside their own walls to feed their pipelines and replace lost revenue from blockbuster products going off patent.

Beyond acquisitions such as its purchase of the biotech BiPar Sciences and its oncology collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi’s efforts to expand the sources feeding into its pipeline has included the establishment of a corporate venture capital fund, cooperative research agreements with The Charité University and MIT, and joining the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center’s Corporate Consortium Program to help fund the center’s Accelerator Program in return for an early peek at promising companies and their technologies.

“Our alliance with Scripps underscores Sanofi-Aventis’ commitment to collaborating with a range of innovative partners focused on cutting-edge scientific research and development initiatives,” said Marc Cluzel, executive vice-president, Research & Development, Sanofi-Aventis. “Personalized medicine, particularly the application of genomics, has the potential to vastly improve patient health. This partnership seeks to significantly enhance our research activities in this important field.”

Under the terms of the alliance, Sanofi-Aventis Recherche & Developpement, a subsidiary of Sanofi-Aventis Group, will fund up to three Discovery Innovation Grants per year, which is intended to offer flexible financing for innovative research proposals from Scripps investigators.

In exchange, Sanofi-Aventis will be granted non-exclusive rights to any research tools developed through these grants, as well as preferred access to Scripps laboratory facilities for work conducted in support of sponsored research agreements and technologies or discoveries in the field of personalized medicine. Additionally, through ongoing scientific exchange and collaboration, Sanofi-Aventis will have access to Scripps research programs that can contribute to the company’s priority areas.

“Our alliance with Sanofi-Aventis exemplifies the ideal collaboration between the pharmaceutical industry and non-profit research community,” said Eric Topol, chief academic officer of Scripps Health. “The partnership aims to foster an environment of open scientific exchange in genomic medicine that we hope will translate to new discoveries to benefit patients while establishing a collaborative approach to drug development.”