February 2, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Unidentified sources, reported BloombergBusiness yesterday, say that Paris-based Sanofi and Kenilworth, NJ-based Merck & Co. are discussing ending its vaccines joint venture.
The joint venture, Sanofi Pasteur MSD, reported approximately $330 million in revenues for the first half of 2015, and supplies about 50 percent of Europe’s flu vaccines. In Europe, it also provides shingles vaccinations and the cervical cancer vaccine Gardisil. Apparently sales have only shown growth out of one of the past seven quarters, and Olivier Brandicourt, Sanofi’s chief executive officer, is concerned that the company doesn’t have much in its vaccine pipeline.
Since Brandicourt took over Sanofi early last year, he has been focused on evaluating the company from top to bottom in order to cut costs and bolster its sagging diabetes revenues. Part of the plan is to cut $1.63 billion in costs over the next five years. He is also considering spinning off its animal health unit, Merial, and its European generics business.
“I am defining new priorities for Sanofi,” Brandicourt said at a meeting in November 2015. “The company will remain diversified, but with a portfolio refocused on areas where we can win, and innovation driven to improve the lives of millions of people.”
The company said in December that it was in talks with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH’s to trade its Merial animal health business with Boehringer’s consumer-health business.
Earlier today, Sanofi executives met with French union representatives to discuss restructuring plans and job cuts. Early reports indicate there will be more than 500 job cuts in France.
Sanofi Pasteur MSD had been around for about twenty years and is headquartered in Lyon, France, very close to Sanofi’s vaccine business, Sanofi Pasteur. Sanofi Pasteur is beginning to launch the world’s first vaccine against dengue fever, Dengvaxia. It also indicates that it has a total of 14 vaccines in development or that have been submitted for approval. Vaccines are being developed for hospital-acquired infections such as Clostridium difficile and Pseudomonas aueruginosa, and for tuberculosis and AIDS, as well as others.
The company announced today that it is starting to do work on a vaccine against the Zika virus, which was recently declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization. This mosquito-borne virus has been linked to birth defects.
Merck has a vaccines division, as well, and is developing a vaccine against Ebola. In addition, it markets vaccines against Haemophilus b and Hepatitis B (Comvax), Human Papillomavirus (Gardasil), measles, mumps and rubella (M-M-R) and others.
Sanofi Pasteur MSD has more than 1,000 employees and was founded in 1994. It has vaccines against more than 20 diseases. Its products include Avaxim against Hepatitis A, Covaxis/Triaxis against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, Intanza against influenza, Pneumo 23 against pneumococcal diseases, Zostavax against shingles and many others.
