Sanofi Makes $1 Billion Investment in French Operations

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--French pharmaceutical major Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) (Paris, France) has pledged more than 1.1 billion euro ($1.2 billion) to boost its French bio-manufacturing operations.

The company has committed, as part of the government's "Choose France" business and enterprise summit, to build new capacity at its sites in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val de Marne), Le Trait (Seine-Maritime) and Lyon Gerland (Rhône). This comes on top of previous pledges topping 2.5 billion euro ($2.7 billion) made since the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said the new investment will create more than 500 jobs and "significantly strengthen France's ability to control the production of essential medicines from start to finish, for the present day and into the future". Sanofi prides itself on carrying out most of its production in Europe and France, when much of the pharma sector relies on production in Asia. The company said that it completes more than 60% of its global production in the European Union (EU) and sources only 5% of its active ingredients in Asia, "compared to an average of 80% in the pharmaceutical industry."

In Vitry-sur-Seine, Sanofi will invest 1 billion euro ($1.08 billion) to build a new facility that will double the site's monoclonal antibody production capacity. Several biologics in development amongst Sanofi's 12 potential blockbusters in fields such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), asthma, multiple sclerosis or type 1 diabetes, could be produced in Vitry to meet the needs of millions of patients in France and around the world. Around 350 jobs will be created at the site. Le Trait, in Normandy, will get an investment of 100 million euro ($108 million) to develop new capacity for biologics formulation, filling, device assembly and packaging. It will support the launch of future biologics and vaccines, as well as the continued growth of Dupixent, which is already used for several inflammatory diseases and, Sanofi hopes, could become the first biologic used in COPD. This investment will support 150 jobs. A further 10 million euro will be spent at Lyon Gerland to start production of TZield in France. Sanofi acquired the biologic used for Type 1 diabetes in April 2023 but it has not yet been produced in Europe.

"Thanks to the transformation undertaken since 2020, Sanofi has a record number of medicines and vaccines in development that could become best-in-class and help meet major public health challenges," commented Paul Hudson, chief executive officer, Sanofi. "With these unprecedented industrial investments, we remain true to our history by once again choosing France to produce these future medicines and make them available to patients around the world. France is, and always will be, at the heart of Sanofi's strategy."

The increased investment comes as part of Sanofi's "Play to Win" strategy presented at the end of 2023, which focuses on more R&D to become a leader in the immunology sector, specifically asthma, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and COPD. To that end, it has committed to spending an additional 700 million euro ($761 million) per year in R&D over the next two years. In 2023, the company invested 6.7 billion euro ($7.3 billion) in R&D.

At the same event, the U.K.'s largest drugmaker, AstraZeneca (Cambridge, U.K.) announced plans to invest $388 million to expand its manufacturing complex at Dunkirk, creating 100 jobs. The investment will be used to build two new assembly and packaging lines, new buildings and a new fully automated store. In addition, the company will shift its inhaler products to a new propellant gas with global warming potential "close to zero," the company stated. AstraZeneca previously committed $500 million in French spending over five years in 2020 and now employs more than 2,000 people in the country.

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