Dive Brief:
- Sanofi/Medtronic are entering into an open-innovation partnership.
- The goals of the partnership are to develop drug-device combinations and also to provide care management services.
- Sanofi believes that better integrated care solutions will move the needle on the adherence problem.
Dive Insight:
Adherence is a significant problem in the treatment of diabetes, and according to PhRMA, patients with diabetes who do not take their medications are 2.5 times more likely to be hospitalized. Both Sanofi and Medtronic recognize this problem and are developing solutions in the context of better delivery of care-management services. The goals of these services are to improve adherence and make insulin treatment easier. The overall effect will be to help people with diabetes better manage their conditions.
By offering drug-device combinations, both Sanofi and Medtronic will be able to leverage their areas of expertise, as well as the human and financial resources of each company. With its recent acquisition of Coviden, Medtronic has strengthened its base operations, making this type of collaboration more attractive. For its part, Sanofi has been aggressively presenting positive data on its diabetes therapeutics at ADA 2014.