UCSF, Sanofi launch $3.1M pilot diabetes drug project

UCSF and drug maker Sanofi will work together in a $3.1 million pilot project to identify drug targets both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
It is the third to come out of a master agreement in January 2011 between the French company and the University of California, San Francisco. Research groups are working together in brain trauma and oncology as well.
In the diabetes deal -- bringing together researchers at Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) with scientists in the UCSF labs of Michael McManus, Matthias Hebrok and Dr. Michael German -- will focus on insulin-producing cells, called beta cells, that are destroyed in type 1 diabetes and often produce too little insulin in type 2.