January 20, 2012: Sanofi has launched Warp Drive Bio, an innovative start-up biotechnology company, in collaboration with two venture capital companies, Third Rock Ventures (TRV), a venture capital firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California, USA. Warp Drive Bio is focused on proprietary genomic technology to discover drugs of natural origin.
The company’s technology was developed by Harvard University chemical biologist Dr Gregory Verdine and incubated at Third Rock Ventures for two years. Joining Dr Verdine as co-founders of the company are Dr George Church and Dr Jim Wells. The Warp Drive Bio team has been assembling an array of technologies to create a platform for identifying potential drug candidates using microbiology, next-generation sequencing, cutting-edge bioinformatics and chemo-informatics. Warp Drive Bio’s integrated process pairs a ‘genomic search engine’ and customised search queries that enable natural products that are hidden within micro-organisms to be identified on the basis of their distinctive genomic signature.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi and TRV / Greylock will invest in Warp Drive Bio at parity. Total funding over the first five years could amount to up to $125 million, including an equity investment of up to $75 million.
Sanofi will give Warp Drive Bio access to its strains library and natural product expertise and will be granted certain access rights to Warp Drive Bio’s technology and products, on a worldwide basis.
Warp Drive Bio remains an independent company and retains strategic direction, operational management and the right to develop and commercialise assets. The agreement enables the company to advance its core research and development plan to proof of concept in collaboration with Sanofi, while also maintaining the ability to secure additional partnerships.
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