2026 Sanofi iAwards

iAwards Program Description and Objectives:

Sanofi is a global life sciences company committed to improving access to healthcare and supporting the people we serve throughout the continuum of care.

Sanofi iAwards initiative is a multi-institutional partnership program designed to support collaborations with academic investigators to accelerate innovative early stage, disease-relevant research towards the clinic. With this program, Sanofi aims to fund cutting-edge translational research that can contribute to our early-stage pipeline and ultimately benefit patients.

Award winning proposals will receive:

  • $150,000 research funding including institutional direct and indirect costs for 12 months.
  • Sanofi R&D expertise and guidance.


Sanofi’s main objective in creating the iAwards program is to convert successful and promising iAwards projects to sponsored research programs and subsequently create in-licensing and start-up opportunities with the potential to continuously enrich Sanofi’s early-stage portfolio. 

Pre-Proposal submission:

Provided with this call is the pre-proposal submission template, as well as the areas of interest. 

Only selected members of Sanofi and your Institution will have access to your pre-proposal; however, we recommend that information in the pre-proposal should not contain any confidential information or unpublished results. Pre-proposals should not include third parties except members from other Partner institutions also involved in the iAwards Program.

All pre-proposals must be submitted by your tech transfer office to Sanofi by May 26, 2026 at the latest. Please send your pre-proposal to [email protected] by May 22.

The timelines of the iAwards North America Program 2026-2027 are further described below. Pre-proposals that would not respect the guidelines (format, timelines, etc.) will not be evaluated.

Areas of Interest:

OVERALL

  1. New and actionable knowledge about disease relevant targets, pathways and mechanisms
  2. Early-stage compounds or biologics targeting novel disease mechanisms
  3. New models for validating disease relevant targets
  4. Novel therapeutic modalities
     

IMMUNOLOGY & INFLAMMATION

  1. Disease intervention & Patient stratification: Targeted interventions across Dermatology (AD, HS, vitiligo), Respiratory (Asthma, COPD), Gastroenterology (IBD, IBS, Celiac, EoE), Rheumatology (OA, SLE), and Endocrine Autoimmunity (T1D)—with a clear focus on defined patient subgroups.
  2. Targeted immune modulation: Innovative approaches to disrupt T-cell activation, induce immune tolerance, and
    1. selectively deplete pathogenic T- and B-cell subsets—enabling durable disease control with an optimized safety profile.
  3. Innate & myeloid pathways: Modulating myeloid cell populations and specialized APCs to reduce inflammation, fibrosis, and core disease-driving immune responses.
  4. Transplantation & immune suppression: Advancing maintenance therapies to prevent organ rejection and address chronic graft-versus-host disease.
  5. Systems immunology & complex phenotypes: Addressing immune activation syndromes (e.g., MAS/MCAS) and elucidating how pathogenic cell phenotypes drive interconnected multi-organ axes (e.g., skin–joint, skin–brain, including pain, itch, and fatigue).
  6. Emerging biology: Focus on aging (inflammaging), obesity, neuroimmune interactions, and sex-specific immune mechanisms.
  7. Advanced models: Leveraging human-relevant and organoid systems, as well as complex disease models across dermatology, respiratory, and gastroenterology (e.g. to interrogate mechanisms such as epithelial barrier dysfunction) 
     

ONCOLOGY (Adult and Childhood Cancers)

  1. New therapeutic targets and new cell surface markers for priority indications (Multiple Myeloma, gastrointestinal cancers, lung cancers, childhood cancers)
  2. New strategies of Immune Cell Engagers (engagers of T cells, NK cells, or unconventional immune cells)
  3. Novel strategies for targeting tumor micro-environment (including myeloid/macrophages, fibroblast targets, vascular normalization, etc)
  4. Biology of immune aging
  5. Immune cell reprogramming
     

RARE DISEASE

  1. Innovative therapeutics for neuromuscular and cardio-muscular diseases, addressing both monogenic and genetically heterogeneous disorders via shared pathogenic pathways (e.g., inflammation, fibrosis, metabolism, regeneration).
  2. Novel targets and mechanisms in rare hematologic and immunologic diseases, including sickle cell disease, rare anemias, mast cell disorders, and related immune conditions.
  3. New targets and therapeutic concepts for genetically defined CNS and neurodevelopmental disorders, including repeat expansion diseases, spliceopathies, and monogenic neurodegeneration.
  4. Next generation RNA targeting modalities for neuromuscular and neurodevelopmental diseases, emphasizing self-regulating or self-limiting mRNA modulation for highly dose sensitive genes.
  5. Biomarker discovery and validation to support diagnosis, patient stratification, and translational readouts in rare neuromuscular, monogenic neurologic, and neurodevelopmental disorders
     

TARGET, DISEASE, AND SYSTEMS BIOLOGY

  1. AI/ML Foundation models for multi-omics target biology and target identification – for application to Immunology, Oncology and Neuro conditions
  2. Single cell & spatial characterization of respiratory & autoimmune diseases (HS, atopic dermatitis, SLE, asthma, COPD).
  3. Large-scale functional genomics for target ID in nodal immune pathways - Immunology
  4. Novel 3D disease modeling for functional analysis screening disease relevant targets and mechanism - Immunology
  5. Data and AI-driven indication expansion, life-cycle management and positioning – All TAs
     

NEUROLOGY

  1. Neuroinflammatory targets implicated in dementia and neuropsychiatric conditions.
  2. Targets conferring resilience to neurodegeneration and dementia. Exploratory analysis based on large scale-omics and centenarian datasets.
  3. TDP43, C9orf72 disease biology and pathway modulators.
  4. ApoE4 biology and pathway modulators.
  5. BBB crossing addresses for biologics.
  6. Endosomal escape mechanisms for protein replacement strategies.
     

VACCINES

  1. Use of Artificial Intelligence
    1. To develop virtual patient vaccination models.
    2. To build on “Smart RNA vaccines” for regulated and cell-specific expression.
    3. To streamline the sequence-to-mRNA vaccine process.
    4. To design new vaccine antigens and analyze vaccine data.
  2. Targeting and disease-specific vaccines
    1. New targeting systems for cell-guided vaccines.
    2. New technologies for vaccines against autoimmune diseases (e.g. IBD, MS, lupus) and allergies.
    3. New biological approaches to prevent aging-related diseases.
  3. New vaccination and administration technologies
    1. Tolerogenic approaches for T cell vaccines, focusing on route, adjuvant, formulation and design.
    2. Improvement of mRNA vaccine delivery into the cytosol.
    3. Alternative vectors and administration routes.
    4. Develop controlled release mechanisms, eliminating the need for boosters.
  4. Immunological analysis and evaluation.
    1. Multiparametric immunological analysis on microsamples.
    2. New technologies to assess mucosal immunology post-vaccination.
    3. In vitro and in silico immunogenicity readouts of drug product formulations.
  5. Vaccine stability and production
    1. Enhance the stability of RNA-based vaccines.
    2. Protein production with cell-free systems, scalable to GMP manufacturing.
    3. Improved E. coli strains combined with antibiotic-free selection systems from plasmid manufacturing.
    4. Universal liquid formulation for thermostable vaccines.
  6. Tests and equipment
    1. Novel high throughput multiplex biological assays.
    2. End-to-end small-scale, automated and high-throughput drug substance equipment
       

OPTHALMOLOGY

  1. Diseases of interest: age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma
  2. Key disease pathways: angiogenesis & vascular integrity, retinal degeneration & neuroprotection, retinal neuroinflammation, lipid & drusen deposition, retinal fibrosis
  3. Omics research in retinal disease biology: multi-omics analyses of eye tissue samples, molecular drivers & biomarkers of disease progression, genetic perturbations in disease-relevant cell types with multi-omics readouts at scale, lab-in-a-loop
  4. Retinal disease models: innovative in vitro disease models including iPSC-derived modes, organoids, explants & organ-on-a-chip, in vivo disease models modeling human disease, in silico disease models
  5. Novel approaches to analytical characterization & potency prediction of Lipid Nano Particles (LNP)
  6. Approaches to obviate lipid nano particle / viral capsid immunogenicity including predictive models
     

Call timelines:

Submission of completed Pre-Proposals to [email protected]: May 22, 2026

Submission of completed Pre-Proposals to Sanofi by Institutions: May 26, 2026

Notification of Pre-proposals chosen to be pursued - Call for Full Proposals: July 3, 2026

Submission of completed Full Proposals to Sanofi by Institutions: September 4, 2026

Institutions informed funding decisions: November 9, 2026

Related documents

Call for pre-proposals

Pre-proposal submission template