Regeneron forms consortium to advance human gene sequencing

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has formed a pre-competitive consortium with AbbVie, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Biogen and Pfizer to accelerate its gene sequencing project.

The collaborators will invest $10m each for the generation of genetic exome sequence data from 500,000 volunteers within the UK Biobank resource.

Regeneron intends to pair the obtained sequencing data with detailed, de-identified medical and health records such as brain, heart and body imaging within the biobank to generate a resource for linking human genetic variations to biology and disease.

Initially funded by Regeneron and GlaxoSmithKline, the sequencing was expected to complete by 2022. The new partnerships are anticipated to accelerate the project for completion by the end of next year.

"The sequencing is being carried out at the Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) facility, and all data will be made available to researchers by the end of 2020 by UK Biobank."

The sequencing is being carried out at the Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) facility, and all data will be made available to researchers by the end of 2020 by UK Biobank.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals president and chief scientific officer George Yancopoulos said: "With mounting national and global health concerns due to widespread increases in obesity-related diseases like diabetes, and age-related diseases such as dementia, together with the ongoing threats of cardiovascular disease, cancer and infectious agents, it is a great statement that so many leading life sciences companies are willing to put aside their individual differences and come together to bring this unprecedented, pre-competitive ‘big data’ resource to the world."

Regeneron has also announced that under an agreement signed in 2015 with Sanofi, the firms will boost their investment for the clinical development of PD-1 antibody cemiplimab to a minimum of $1.64bn.

Cemiplimab development will be equally funded by the firms, which have further agreed to increase investment in IL-4/IL-13 pathway-blocking antibody dupilumab.