Photo: VCG

Chinese internet giant Baidu inked a licensing agreement with French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to allow it to integrate Baidu's LinearDesign algorithm into its product design pipeline.

LinearDesign is Baidu's messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) design optimization platform.

Under the agreement, Sanofi will leverage the platform to advance in the optimization of mRNA sequences for human therapeutic and preventive uses, according to a press release Baidu sent to the Global Times on Monday.

The company hailed the agreement as a milestone on the use of its strengths in computational biology to optimize mRNA vaccine and therapy designs in real-world pharmaceutical practice beyond COVID-19.

"The emerging mRNA technology has rapidly advanced the science of vaccine and drug development for infectious diseases like COVID-19," Tian Wu, a senior executive from Baidu mentioned, adding that "we have already seen that combining mRNA with computational biology tools makes the process quicker and more effective and has the potential to further transform drug discovery." 

While mRNA has proved to be an innovative technology for vaccine development, instability remains a major limitation that affects the storage, distribution and efficacy of mRNA vaccines.

LinearDesign is a novel algorithm developed by Baidu researchers in 2020 specifically for mRNA sequence design.