BRIDGEWATER, N.J.—Sanofi US has named Registries for AllDiseases as the winner of the Collaborate Activate Innovation Challenge. As aresult, Registries for All Diseases will be awarded $300,000 for the creationof a crowd-sourced, cross-disease registry to aid in accelerating translationalresearch in over 1,000 diseases. The team is made up of partneringorganizations Genetic Alliance, CFIDS Association of America, NationalPsoriasis Foundation and the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Alltold, the Registries for All Diseases team plans to reach over 9,000 healthorganizations and 1,200 disease advocacy organizations.
"Collaborate Activate embodies our commitment toimproving health outcomes for patients by uniting the advocacy community toaccelerate innovation," Anne Whitaker, president of North AmericaPharmaceuticals at Sanofi US, said in a press release. "Registries for AllDiseases exemplifies the collaborative nature of the challenge by creating amulti-tiered solution that captures both common data across all diseases anddisease-specific data, showcasing the expertise of each partneringorganization."
Collaborate Activate is one of the initiatives of Sanofi'sPartners in Patient Health, and was announced this May. The challenge calledfor two or more groups to collaborate in order to qualify and was intended topromote the sharing of complementary resources between partneringorganizations. Sanofi US created the challenge in hopes that uniting patientadvocates would lead to novel ideas that would not be possible otherwise.
"Data can accelerate research and services, help us getbetter patient outcomes, and save money," Sharon Terry, president and CEOof Genetic Alliance, said in a statement. "But right now, this data is insilos and is not easily accessible to researchers. By creating apatient-centered research network that spans many diseases, people will beempowered to participate in their own health and can contribute data to advancethe development of disease treatments."
Registry for All Diseases was one of four teams that made itto the final phase of Collaborate Activate, and each finalist received $25,000and mentorship from Sanofi team members and healthcare experts in order tofine-tune their ideas before presenting to the judging panel. Submissions werereceived from a total of 280 partnering organizations for new solutions inenabling patients to engage in their health.
"Creating a registry of patients is the single mostvaluable action a rare disease community can take," said David Meeker, MD,President and CEO of Genzyme, a Sanofi company. "The registry providescritical disease knowledge which makes that disease easier to study, increasingthe probability a treatment can be developed. We congratulate the Registriesfor All Diseases team."
The second place winner in the Collaborate ActivateInnovation Challenge is 21st Century Brain Trust, consists of the GeoffreyBeene Gives Back Alzheimer's Initiative, the American Health AssistanceFoundation and the USAgainstAlzheimer's Network, and will receive $100,000 todevelop its solution, a self-administered, clinical-grade cognitive testing appmeant for the detection of asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease. The app isintended to anticipate the onset of Alzheimer's as well as establishing adialogue focused on brain health rather than brain disease, prompting people totake control of their own cognitive well-being.
SOURCE: Sanofi US press release