To ensure efficient, flexible, and professional day-to-day management, a dedicated Management Board for VITAL has been established. Daniel Larocque joined the Management Board as Deputy Project Leader in March 2022. Daniel is deputy director at the Innovation and Emerging Sciences Group within the Sanofi Vaccines business unit in Lyon, France. The group’s objective is to coordinate external scientific academic collaborations such as the IMI2 projects. Daniel holds a PhD from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and is a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA funded by the Human Frontier Science Program Organization. From 2007 to 2015, he was the Immunology Platform head and project leader on a few projects related to immuno-senescence (Alzheimer’s disease vaccine, chronic disorders and vaccine adjuvants mechanisms) at GSK Vaccines. He worked for Sanofi since 2015 and has been involved in human immunology and system vaccinology research related to flu vaccines responses in the elderly on projects such as Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) and the Agency for Science Technology and Research (A∗STAR).
Sanofi and VITAL
VITAL’s consortium represents a unique blend of backgrounds, experience and geographical locations united under a single ambition: to improve the life of elderly EU citizens by enabling preventive measures against infectious diseases. Relevant expertise across the work packages is brought together by several partners, which will enhance crossovers between research fields and the generation and implementation of novel ideas. Sanofi sponsored the AEQUI study and is involved in work package one. This study team aims to measure the impact of Acute Respiratory Infection and bacteremia hospitalizations on quality of life and frailty in the elderly population. The AEQUI study consists of a longitudinal prospective case-control study and will involve almost 4,000 hospitalized patients aged 65 years or older who are presenting with bacteremia with positive blood culture and/or Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI). Sanofi prepared the work package one pilot prospective study.
