Sanofi-Aventis invests €150 million in push towards biotech and vaccines
This article was originally published in Scrip
Sanofi-Aventis is to invest €150 million to shift its industrial focus in France from chemical to biotechnology and vaccine production by 2014.
The investment will include €90 million for the creation of a new biosynthetic process in the industrial plants at Saint-Aubin-Lés-Elbeuf in Seine-Maritime and at Vertolaye in Puy de Dôme. Sanofi-Aventis hopes that the new process will improve its corticosteroid production and will result in the creation of new local jobs.
Some new activities will be housed at Sanofi-Aventis's new facility in Neuville-sur-Saône in Rhône. Work began on building the new facility in May last year and it is expected to be operational in 2013, when it will become Sanofi-Aventis's third largest European centre fully dedicated to vaccines. The company plans to produce 100 million doses of a prophylactic dengue vaccine there annually by 2013.
Sanofi-Aventis was criticised heavily towards the end of last year when it cut around 750 sales jobs in the US but failed to publish an official statement making clear the exact numbers of cuts and the reasons behind them (scripnews.com, 4 December 2009).
However, it appears that the company is more willing to protect and boost jobs in its home country as it plans to implement a job stimulus plan in the area of Romainville in Seine-Saint Denis, where it will gradually phase out its facilities.
It will also introduce measures to assist employees' geographic mobility, especially in the Paris and Lyon area labour basins, and help its employees' career mobility through biotechnology training programmes for 700 workers. The programmes will be implemented in partnership with French universities.
The switch towards more work in biotechnology is a result of the "evolution of innovation in the pharmaceutical world, more and more balance between vaccines and compounds arising from biotechnologies and active ingredients derived from synthetic chemistry", Sanofi-Aventis's vice-president of industrial affairs Philippe Luscan said. The project will allow the company to generate sustainable growth and to keep a steady number of industry jobs in France over the next four years, he added.
Meanwhile, Sanofi-Aventis has signed an agreement to co-develop solutions in diabetes care with the blood glucose monitoring company AgaMatrix. The solutions will be exclusive to Sanofi-Aventis and are designed to be synergistic to its existing diabetes portfolio.
Sanofi-Aventis will commercialise products aimed at reducing the perceived complexity of managing patients on insulin therapy in the second half of this year.
The deal provides Sanofi-Aventis with an opportunity to combine its insulins Lantus (insulin glargine) and Arpidra (insulin glulisine) with easy-to-use and reliable blood glucose monitors, the head of the company's global diabetes division Pierre Chancel said.
AgaMatrix is a privately held company based in Salem, New Hampshire.