France The latest from French pharma where Sanofi has inked a deal to produce 125 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine as it faces delays with its in-house product and the impact of this on the country’s global scientific standing. Also featured are the rising problem of anti-vaccine sentiment, an exclusive…

France A roundup of the latest stories from French pharma, including the progress of Sanofi’s COVID-19 vaccine, how Ipsen has managed to achieve sales growth in 2020 despite the pandemic, diagnostics biotech Novacyt’s remarkable rise, and a new job for former Ipsen boss Marc de Garidel.   Sanofi aims for COVID-19…

France A roundup of some of the latest from French pharma, including Sanofi’s bumper Prinicipia deal, how Unither’s new Chinese acquisition catapults it into the world’s top 5 CDMOs, Ipsen’s resilient performance in the first half of 2020 despite COVID-19 headwinds, and the French government’s push for more domestic pharma manufacturing.…

Sanofi Sanofi has agreed a deal to buy out its partner, US biotech company Principia Biopharma for USD 3.7 billion in cash, giving the French giant full ownership of Principia’s pipeline of BTK inhibitors for autoimmune disorders.   The deal, whereby Sanofi is set to pay USD 100 a share to…

Sanofi With former head David Loew moving to the CEO position at Ipsen, Sanofi appointed French national Thomas Triomphe as the new head of its vaccines business unit, Sanofi Pasteur, on June 15th 2020.    Under the watch of CEO Paul Hudson, appointed at the end of 2019, Sanofi has initiated…

USA French firm LFB is targeting the lucrative US market with its hemophilia products and recently received two FDA approvals. Although launching new products in the midst of a global pandemic is not without challenges, LFB USA CEO Jose Antonio Moreno Toscano is optimistic that the launches will be a success…

France French pharma giant Sanofi is pivoting its focus to invest more heavily in vaccines with a plan to invest USD 679 million in vaccine manufacturing operations in the next two years. This announcement came shortly after news of further rounds of layoffs of research staff working on cardiovascular diseases and…

France David Loew, formerly executive vice president of Sanofi Pasteur, Sanofi’s vaccines division, was appointed CEO of fellow French firm Ipsen on the 28th May 2020, effective 1st July.   Loew, who spoke to PharmaBoardroom in January 2019 while in position at Sanofi Pasteur, is taking the helm from Aymeric Le…

Europe Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel recently put their heads together to come up with a health strategy that would ensure greater European access to innovative medicines and COVID-19 treatments.   The so-called “power couple” – German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron –  presented a jointly developed five-point…

Coronavirus In a recent interview with Financial Times, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson set out to clarify some recent comments that the US would get priority access to a COVID-19 vaccine. He explained the firm’s collaboration with US research group BARDA and underscored that Sanofi is committed to bringing vaccines to all…

Coronavirus The world’s two leading vaccine producers, GSK of the UK and France’s Sanofi, last week announced that they are working together to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19); an unprecedented agreement that shows the scale of the challenge facing the global biopharmaceutical industry and possibly provides the world’s…

France Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in Paris have become the first in Europe to fully sequence the genome of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus – putting the Institut at the forefront of developing a vaccine for the virus.   As of the 4th February 2020, the Coronavirus 2019-nCoV, originating in the Chinese…