Санофи: Француздық фармацевтикалық компанияның тарихы мен қызметі

French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company

Sanofi S. A. is a French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. The corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi Synthélabo. In 2004, Sanofi Synthélabo merged with Aventis and renamed to Sanofi Aventis, which were each the product of several previous mergers. It changed its name back to Sanofi in May 2011. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. In 2023, the company’s seat in Forbes Global 2000 was 89. Sanofi engages in the research and development, manufacturing, and marketing of pharmacological products, principally in the prescription market, but the firm also develops over the counter medications. The corporation covers seven major therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, central nervous system, diabetes, internal medicine, oncology, thrombosis, and vaccines (it is the world's largest producer of the last through its subsidiary Sanofi Pasteur).

Sanofi was founded in 1973 as a subsidiary of Elf Aquitaine (a French oil company subsequently acquired by Total), when Elf Aquitaine took control of the Labaz group, a pharmaceutical company formed in 1947 by Sociéte Belge de l'Azote et des Produits Chimiques du Marly; Labaz developed benziodarone in 1957. In 1993, Sanofi made a move into the Eastern Europe market by acquiring a controlling interest in Chinoin, a Hungarian drug company whose 1992, sales totaled about US$104 million. In the same year, Sanofi made its first significant venture into the US, and strengthened its presence in Eastern Europe, by first partnering with Sterling Winthrop and then acquiring the prescription pharmaceuticals business in 1994. Sanofi was incorporated under the laws of France in 1994, as a société anonyme, a form of limited liability company. Synthélabo was founded in 1970, through the merger of two French pharmaceutical laboratories, Laboratoires Dausse (founded in 1834)б and Laboratoires Robert & Carrière (founded in 1899). In 1973, the French cosmetics group L'Oréal acquired the majority of its share capital. and Laboratoires Delagrange, and through this deal picked up the product metoclopramide. Sanofi Synthélabo was formed in 1999 when Sanofi merged with Synthélabo; at the time of the merger, Sanofi was the second largest pharmaceutical group in France in terms of sales and Synthélabo was the third largest. The merged company was based in Paris, France. The merged companies focused on pharmaceuticals, divesting several businesses soon after the merger, including beauty, diagnostics, animal health and nutrition, custom chemicals, and two medical equipment businesses. The merged company was based in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg, France. At the time of the merger, Rhône Poulenc's business included the pharmaceutical businesses Rorer, Centeon (blood products), and Pasteur Merieux (vaccines), the plant and animal health businesses Rhône Poulenc Agro, Rhône Poulenc Animal Nutrition, and Merial, and a 67 percent share in Rhodia, a speciality chemicals company. In 2000, Aventis and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a US biotechnology company formed to discover new drugs based on the then new science of genomics, announced that Aventis would make a $250M investment in Millennium and would pay $200M to Millennium in research fees over five years, one of the largest such deals between a big pharmaceutical company and a biotech company at the time. In late 2000, in the midst of the recall of Starlink, its genetically modified maize product, Aventis announced that it had determined to sell off Aventis Cropscience, the seed and pesticide business unit it had created from the agriculture businesses of its predecessors. In October 2001, Bayer and Aventis announced that Bayer would acquire the unit for about $6.6 billion; the unit became Bayer CropScience, making Bayer the world's second largest agrochemical company behind Syngenta. In 2003, Aventis entered into a collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a New York biotechnology company, to develop Regeneron's VEGF inhibiting drug, aflibercept, which was then in Phase I clinical trials. Aventis invested $45 million in Regeneron and made an upfront payment of $80 million in cash. Regeneron partnered the use of the drug with Bayer Healthcare in the field of proliferative eye diseases, and under the name Eylea it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2011; after several setbacks in clinical trials, Regeneron and Sanofi got the drug approved for metastatic colorectal cancer in combination with other agents, under the brand name Zaltrap in 2012.

Sanofi Aventis was formed in 2004, when Sanofi Synthélabo acquired Aventis. In early 2004, Sanofi Synthélabo made a hostile takeover bid for Aventis worth €47.8 billion. Initially, Aventis rejected the bid because it felt that the bid offered inferior value based on the company's share value, and the board of Aventis went so far as to enact poison pill provisions and to invite Novartis to enter merger negotiations. The three month takeover battle concluded when Sanofi Synthélabo launched a friendly bid of €54.5 billion in place of the previously rejected hostile bid. The French government played a strong role, desiring what it called a "local solution", by putting heavy pressure on Sanofi Synthélabo to raise its bid for Aventis and for Aventis to accept the offer and by rejecting Aventis's poison pill proposal. One of the largest risks in the deal for both sides was the fate of the patents protecting Clopidogrel (Plavix), which was one of the top selling drugs in the world at the time and the major source of Sanofi's revenue.

In 2006, Iraqis infected with HIV sued Sanofi and Baxter over HIV contaminated haemophilia blood products sold by Merieux in the 1980s. In 2006, the US patents on clopidogrel (Plavix) were challenged when a Canadian generics company, Apotex, filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application under the Hatch Waxman Act, received FDA approval, and started marketing a generic formulation of clopidogrel. While Sanofi Aventis and its partner in the drug, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), were able to get an injunction to stop Apotex from selling it, the case became complicated when settlement negotiations fell apart twice – the second time because of an oral agreement made by BMS CEO Peter Dolan that BMS failed to disclose to the Federal Trade Commission during the review of the settlement agreement to ensure that it did not violate antitrust law. When Apotex disclosed the oral agreement to the FTC, the FTC launched an investigation that led to Dolan's dismissal by BMS. Apotex finally lost on the patent litigation issues after its third appeal was decided in favor of BMS/Sanofi in November 2011; Apotex had to pay ~$442 million in damages and ~$108 million in interest for infringing the patent, which it paid in full by February 2012. Apotex also sued BMS and Sanofi for $3.4 billion for allegedly breaching the settlement agreement; Apotex lost a jury trial in March 2013. In 2007, Sanofi Aventis expanded on Aventis's prior relationship with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals; in the new deal Sanofi Aventis agreed to pay Regeneron $100 million per year for five years, under which Regeneron would use its monoclonal antibody discovery platform to create new biopharmaceuticals, to which Sanofi Aventis gained the exclusive right to co develop. In 2009, the companies expanded the deal to $160 million per year and extended it to 2017. as of 2009, the collaboration had four antibodies in clinical development and had filed an IND for a fifth. Two were against undisclosed targets, one targeted the interleukin 6 receptor as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, another targeted nerve growth factor for the treatment of pain, and another targeted delta like ligand 4 as a cancer treatment. In 2009, Medley Farma, the third largest pharmaceutical company in Brazil and a leading generics company there, was acquired for about $635 million. Sanofi outbid Teva Pharmaceuticals. The deal was approved by Brazil's antitrust authorities in May 2010. In October Sanofi Aventis announced that it would lay off about 1700 US employees (about 25% of its US workforce) because of restructuring triggered by growing generic competition and other factors, and that the company would focus its US operations on diabetes, atrial fibrillation, and oncology. In 2010, US consumer healthcare company Chattem, Inc. was acquired for around $1.9 billion. In the same year, Nepentes Pharma was acquired for $130 million and BMP Sunstone Corporation for $520.6 million.

The company dropped the Aventis suffix of its name on 6 May 2011, after receiving approval at its annual general meeting. The reason given by the company for the change was to make its name easier to pronounce in countries such as China. In 2011, Genzyme Corporation was acquired for around $20.1 billion. This biotechnology company, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializes in the treatment of orphan diseases, renal diseases, endocrinology, oncology, and biosurgery. In January 2012, Sanofi co invested in the $125 million Series A financing of Warp Drive Bio. Sanofi sought support for its internal cancer research program and also took on an obligation to acquire Warp Drive if certain milestones were met. In January 2014, Genzyme and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a US biotechnology company developing RNAi therapeutics, announced that Genyzme would invest $700 million in Alnylam. Under the deal, Genzyme obtained further rights to patisiran, an RNAi treatment for transthyretin mediated amyloidosis – a condition that can result in familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy and familial amyloidotic cardiomyopathy and obtained rights to other compounds in Alnylam's pipeline. In March 2014, Sanofi joined the bidding for Merck & Co.'s over the counter health products unit, the maker of Coppertone sunblock and the antihistamine Claritin; bids were expected to range between $10 billion and $12 billion. In October 2014, Sanofi's directors fired US resident chief executive Chris Viehbacher, blaming his alleged lack of communication with the board and poor execution of his strategy. Board chairperson Serge Weinberg took over as interim CEO until 2 April 2015 when Bayer Healthcare board chairman Olivier Brandicourt (appointed by Sanofi on 19 February 2015) took over. Before Brandicourt even started his new job, French government ministers Stéphane Le Foll and Ségolène Royal attacked the $4.5 million golden handshake he was getting from Sanofi – and his pay of about $4.7 million a year. Furthermore, in 2014, the business took a 66% stake in Globalpharma, a Dubai based generics manufacturer. In July 2015, Genzyme announced that it would acquire the cancer drug Caprelsa (vandetanib) from AstraZeneca for up to $300 million. In the same month, the company announced a new global collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to discover, develop, and commercialize new immuno oncology drugs, which could generate more than $2 billion for Regeneron, with $640 million upfront, $750 million for proof of concept data, and $650 million from the development of REGN2810. In June 2016, the company announced that it had struck an asset swap deal with Boehringer Ingelheim. Sanofi would sell its Merial animal health division (valuing it at €11.4 billion), while acquiring Boehringer's consumer health division (valuing it at €6.7 billion) and €4.7 billion in cash. The deal meant that Sanofi was now one of the global consumer healthcare leaders by market share. In July 2017, the company announced its intention to acquire Protein Sciences, a privately held Connecticut based vaccines biotechnology company, for $650 million and with up to $100 million in milestone achievements. In January 2018, Sanofi announced that it would acquire Bioverativ for $11.6 billion and days later announced that it would acquire Ablynx for €3.9 billion ($4.8 billion). In December 2019, the company announced that it would acquire Synthorx for $2.5 billion ($68 per share), adding the lead product candidate THOR 707 (SAR444245), a form of interleukin 2 (IL 2) being developed for use against multiple solid tumors. In October 2022, Sanofi announced that it had stopped Phase 2 studies of THOR 707 (SAR444245) because the drug's efficacy “was lower than projected”. Sanofi would take a roughly $1.6 billion impairment charge because of delays to the program. In May 2020, Regeneron announced that it would repurchase around $5 billion of its shares held directly by Sanofi. Before the transaction, Sanofi had held 23.2 million Regeneron shares. In June, the company announced that it had agreed a potential $2 billion deal with Translate Bio, expanding an already existing collaboration for COVID 19 treatments. The company agreed to produce 60 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine for the United Kingdom government in July 2020. It used recombinant protein based technology for Sanofi's flu vaccine along with GSK's pandemic technology and was seeking regulatory approval by the first half of 2021. Sanofi also agreed to a $2.1 billion deal with the United States for 100 million doses. In August, Sanofi announced that it would acquire Principia Biopharma for $3.7 billion, acquiring its BTK inhibitor program. The acquisition was completed in September 2020. In November, Sanofi announced that it would acquire Kiadis Pharma for €308 million (around $359 million, or €5.45 per share), expanding its immuno oncology pipeline with the acquisition of Kiadis's three clinical compounds: K NK002 in Phase II trials for hematopoietic stem cell transplants in blood cancer, K NK003 for relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia, and K NK ID101 for COVID 19. In January 2021, Sanofi announced that it would buy the British biotech Kymab Ltd and its potential first in class drug candidate – KY1005 – for $1.45 billion. In April, the business announced that it would acquire Tidal Therapeutics for up to $470m. in August the company announced that it would acquire Translate Bio and its mRNA vaccine technology for $3.2 billion. On 8 September 2021, Sanofi announced that it would acquire US biotech company Kadmon Corporation for $1.9 billion On 18 November 2021, it was reported that Sanofi would be investing $180 million in French startup Owkin, whose predictive algorithms aim to improve the research and development of new cures against cancer. In December, the company announced that it would acquire Origimm Biotechnology GmbH and its acne vaccine candidate (ORI 001), as well as Amunix Pharmaceuticals, for an initial $1 billion plus potentially $200 million in additional milestones. In April 2022, Sanofi broke ground on its biggest industrial investment, a $638m vaccine and enzymes production facility in Tuas, Singapore, targeted for completion in 2025. In March 2023, the company announced it would acquire Provention Bio and its type 1 diabetes therapy pipeline. In the fall of 2023, Sanofi announced plans to separate the OTC and focus on its key prescription production, increasing investment and reducing costs. The most likely way to separate a non prescription division (about 11,000 employees, 2023 revenue — over $4 billion) is to create a public company headquartered in France. The division is planned for the fourth quarter of 2024. In December 2023, the company has signed a 140 million dollars partnership with Aqemia, a company that solves a mathematical equation that eliminates the need for heavy computing facilities with large computing power. In January 2024, Sanofi announced that it had agreed to buy a U. S. biotech firm Inhibrx for up to $2.2 billion, with a focus on obtaining Inhibrx's INBRX 101, an experimental treatment for Alpha 1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD), an inherited rare disease that causes progressive deterioration of the lung tissue.

+Historical financial data (in billions of euro) Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016201720182019 Revenue 6.069 7.448 8.048 14.87 27.31 28.37 28.05 27.57 29.31 30.38 33.39 34.95 30.97 31.69 34.54 33.8235.0734.4636.13 Net Income 1.098 1.640 1.865 3.665 2.202 4.006 5.263 3.851 5.265 5.467 5.646 4.888 3.716 4.390 4.287 4.8008.424.312.81 Assets 18.23 17.36 17.42 82.85 86.24 77.76 71.91 71.99 80.25 85.26 100.7 100.4 96.06 97.39 102.3 104.799.81111.41112.74 Equity 12.75 12.60 12.74 41.63 46.40 45.60 44.54 44.87 48.32 53.10 56.19 57.35 56.9 56.12 58.05 57.7258.0758.8858.93
Note. In 2001—2004 – Sanofi Synthélabo, in 2004—2011 – Sanofi Aventis.

as of 2013, Sanofi was in a race with Amgen and Pfizer to win approval for a drug that inhibits PCSK9, a protein that slows the clearance of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol – the form of cholesterol that leads to heart attacks. Sanofi's drug, a monoclonal antibody, was discovered by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and is called alirocumab. An FDA warning in March 2014, about possible cognitive adverse effects of PCSK9 inhibition threw the competition into disarray, as the FDA asked companies to include neurocognitive testing into their Phase III clinical trials. In 2013, Sanofi announced that another candidate from its collaboration with Regeneron, a monoclonal antibody against the interleukin 6 receptor, sarilumab, had better efficacy than placebo in its first Phase III trial in rheumatoid arthritis.

In January 2012, Sanofi moved its head office location to 54, Rue La Boétie in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. This former mansion designed by architect René Patouillard had previously been the head office of Alcatel Lucent. Sanofi's previous head office was located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, at 174 Avenue de France. The architecture of the head office is of the predominant style of the area surrounding the François Mitterrand Library. After Sanofi and Aventis merged, the employees at the former Aventis head office in Schiltigheim, Alsace, moved to Paris. In November 2022, Sanofi moved into its new global headquarters in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, at 46 48 Avenue de la Grande Armée.

In addition to internal research and development activities, Sanofi is also involved in publicly funded collaborative research projects, with other industrial and academic partners. One example in the area of non clinical safety assessment is the InnoMed PredTox project The company is expanding its activities in joint research projects within the framework of the Innovative Medicines Initiative of EFPIA and the European Commission. In June 2010, Sanofi and the Charité University of Berlin signed a cooperation agreement for the research and development of medicines and therapies. On 25 October 2012, Sanofi said its earnings for the third quarter slumped, as generic competitors ate into profits from its Eloxatin cancer treatment.

In 2005, Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi Group, was awarded a $97 Million United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contract.

In 2011, a Sanofi Pasteur plant flooded, causing it problems with mold. The facility, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, produced BCG vaccine products, made with the Glaxo 1077 strain, such as a tuberculosis vaccine ImmuCYST, a BCG Immunotherapeutic, a bladder cancer drug. By April 2012, the FDA had found dozens of documented problems with sterility at the plant, including mold, nesting birds, and rusted electrical conduits. On 29 October 2014 Health Canada gave Sanofi permission to resume production of BCG.

In 2020, Sanofi, together with GSK, signed a deal with the US government's Operation Warp Speed to provide 100 million doses of COVID 19 vaccine for up to US$2.1 billion, if the vaccine was approved. As of August 2020, COVID 19 vaccine development in Sanofi underscored its fundamental competitiveness weakness, with which management has been struggling and failed to deal with for many years, beyond cutting more costs. Unfortunately, even though the approach of Sanofi GSK is based on pre existing, approved platforms and technology (as with Flublok flu), without reinventing the wheel of the necessary infrastructure, the company lagged behind many other rivals in delivering a working vaccine. Sanofi planned to start Phase 1 clinical testing only in September and expected emergency use approval in the first half of 2021. Competitors such as Novavax had already completed Phase 1 studies, with promising results, and Moderna NIH had already initiated its Phase 3 trial. According to CNBC reports, as part of the $2.1 billion US government deal, more than 750 million went to supporting Sanofi GSK in vaccine development and clinical trials. Sanofi turn outs "accelerate" the development via a smaller biotech firm, Translate Bio, with a $425M partnership. At the end of September 2021, Sanofi announced that it would stop developing its mRNA COVID 19 vaccine. Despite promising results, the drug would not continue to Phase 3 trials, and the company stated that it would be 'too late to reach the market.'

Sanofi is a full member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). Sanofi's vaccine subsidiary, Sanofi Pasteur, is a member of EuropaBio. In June 2021, Sanofi partnered with Capgemini, Orange & Generali to launch Future4care, an all European start up accelerator centered on digital health.

The Aventis Foundation, a German charitable trust, was established in 1996, as the Hoechst Foundation, with an endowment of €50 million. In 2000, the foundation was renamed the Aventis Foundation. The foundation promotes cultural and scientific projects, specifically focused on the Frankfurt Rhine Main area.