New CEO Paul Hudson has pledged to squeeze €2 billion out of Sanofi’s annual costs in a couple of years through a mix of methods that leans heavily on clamping down on its manufacturing budgets. It has now announced a plan that it says will not only do that but add to its top line.
The French drugmaker today trumpeted plans to create the world’s second-largest API production operation by clumping together its six API manufacturing sites in Europe and the U.K. It said the operation, with 3,100 employees, is projected to have about €1 billion in sales by 2022.
Sanofi intends to decide by then whether to float an IPO for the new French-based company on Euronext Paris. It said the company, in which it will hold a 30% share, will be debt-free to enhance its investment ability.
“With this endeavor, this new entity would be agile as a standalone company, and able to unlock its growth potential, especially in capturing new third-party sales and all the opportunities of a market growing at a pace of 6% per year,” Philippe Luscan, executive VP of Sanofi global Industrial affairs said in a statement.
Sanofi says it will include its API commercial and development operations with its API manufacturing sites Brindisi, Italy: Frankfurt, Germany; Haverhill, UK; St Aubin les Elbeuf and in Vertolaye, France and in Újpest, Hungary.
The company said that such a business would help alleviate drug shortages and balance Europe’s “heavy reliance on API sourced from the Asian region.”
That, of course, has been top of mind as COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on manufacturing in China, the world’s Walmart of API sales. It says that statistics show 60% of global API production comes from China and India.
By Eric Palmer
Source: Fierce Pharma
CureVac and the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have announced a co-development and licensing agreement to develop novel messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines. The strategic collaboration will focus on the development of differentiated cancer vaccine candidates in selected haematological and solid tumour indications with high unmet medical needs.
FUJIFILM Corporation is planning to invest $1.2 billion to expand the planned FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. This news follows the organisation’s announcement of a $2 billion investment in the facility in March 2021. This additional financial boost totals the investment to over $3.2 billion, FUJIFILM confirmed.
Sanofi’s global restructuring and downsizing is now fully underway, with layoffs stretching to the company’s Belgian offices. Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports that 67 employees have been laid off at a site in Ghent and 32 jobs are on the chopping block at Sanofi’s Belgium HQ in Diegem.
