Sanofi, Sema4, Mount Sinai Collaborate on Largest Asthma Study of Its Kind
Five-year multiscale study will follow 1,200 patients using advanced network modeling to make new discoveries
Sema4, a patient-centered predictive health company, and the Mount Sinai Health System today announced the launch of a five-year collaborative study with Sanofi designed to provide new insights into the biological mechanisms and other factors implicated in asthma. The project will follow nearly 1,200 people with asthma and collect a range of data — from traditional clinical data to genomics, immunological, environmental, and sensor data from mobile devices — to enable sophisticated analysis and advanced network modeling of this complex disease.
Asthma is the most prevalent chronic respiratory disease, affecting more than 350 million people worldwide and causing approximately 400,000 deaths worldwide annually1. Evidence shows that the prevalence of asthma is increasing, and along with it both direct healthcare costs as well as indirect costs from loss of productivity and early disability.
“Despite advances in recent years, we still see many patients struggling with asthma, so there is still a tremendous need for innovation to reduce the burden of this disease,” said Linda Rogers, MD, Associate Professor and Clinical Director of the Adult Asthma Program at the Mount Sinai - National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute. “With one of the largest asthma programs in the region, caring for patients across the spectrum of severity of asthma, the Mount Sinai - National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute will play a crucial role in this partnership to advance our understanding of asthma and develop personalized therapies for our patients.”
The study will generate real-world data about patients through innovative molecular profiling of biological samples and digital monitoring of the environment. Clinical research teams from all three organizations will deploy advanced analytics on this information to better understand how the disease functions, what triggers asthma attacks, which patient segments are most likely to respond to certain therapies, why the disease affects people differently, and more. Researchers hope these insights will help pinpoint new therapeutic targets as well as more effective treatment recommendations for patients.
“Understanding how to develop new treatments for asthma starts with a better understanding of the disease,” said Frank Nestle, Global Head of Immunology and Inflammation Research and Chief Scientific Officer, North America, at Sanofi. “Our goal is to develop a holistic view of each patient in the study, which is why we’re excited to add digital technology to the traditional types of medical examinations conducted in this study. It’s a new way to approach this enormous problem, connecting real world clinical and scientific data, that we hope will translate into new ways to treat asthma.”
“Asthma is an incredibly complex condition associated with genetics, environmental factors, activity levels, the immune system and more,” said Eric Schadt, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Sema4. “We believe the only way to fully understand asthma is by using sophisticated modeling tools to mine the rich, multi-dimensional data set we aim to generate in this study. This approach could reveal entirely new avenues for alleviating and more effectively treating asthma.”
“Mount Sinai has incredible clinicians who care for a diverse patient population and is backed by world-class data science and multiscale biological modeling capabilities,” said Andrew Kasarskis, PhD, Vice Chair, Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. “In this groundbreaking collaboration with Sanofi and Sema4, we are thrilled to leverage the Mount Sinai ecosystem and build on our experience with another immune condition, inflammatory bowel disease. Together, we will define asthma subtypes clinically, then understand the molecular basis of disease in each subtype in order to discover new therapies and better manage asthma in all our patients.”
“We’re pleased to partner with Sanofi and Sema4 on this exciting new study,” said Erik Lium, PhD, Executive Vice President of Mount Sinai Innovation Partners. “We believe this collaboration may ultimately lead to the identification of novel targets and the development of groundbreaking therapies to benefit patients with asthma.”
Reference
1. GBD 2015 Chronic Respiratory Disease Collaborators. “Global, regional, and national deaths, prevalence, disability-adjusted life years, and years lived with disability for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015.” Lancet Respir Med 2017; 5: 691–706. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(17)30293-X.
About Sema4
Sema4 is a patient-centered predictive health company founded on the idea that more information, deeper analysis, and increased engagement will improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. A Mount Sinai Health System venture based in Stamford, Connecticut, Sema4 is dedicated to transforming healthcare by building more dynamic models of human health and defining optimal, individualized health trajectories, starting with reproductive health and oncology. Our innovative Sema4 Health Intelligence Platform is enabling us to generate a more complete understanding of disease and wellness and to provide science-driven solutions to the most pressing medical needs. Sema4 believes that patients should be treated as partners, and that data should be shared for the benefit of all.
For more information, please visit sema4.com and connect with Sema4 on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. The Health System includes approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses across seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, a school of nursing, and schools of medicine and graduate school of biomedical sciences.
As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.
Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York and recognized as one of the world’s top Smart Hospital by Newsweek. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 11 among U.S. medical schools for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube. To listen to news and stories from Mount Sinai, visit the Mount Sinai Podcast Network.