Slowly but surely, Sanofi is carving up its consumer healthcare business in an ongoing push to streamline and focus on the high-risk, high-reward pharma sector.
Now the French company is spinning off its consumer unit in India, according to a report in the Economic Times. Sanofi India will be listed as a separate entity in the country’s stock exchange. Bank of America is assisting with the demerger, ET said.
Key products involved in such a separation would include respiratory drug Allegra, pain reliever Comliflam and vitamin supplement Depura, according to the report.
“We do not comment on any media speculation or on market rumors,” a Sanofi India spokesperson said. “In the ordinary course of business and subject to compliance with applicable laws, we regularly assess how to best serve our patients and customers and evaluate different opportunities in India.”
The move comes amid similar initiatives by companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and GSK to discard their consumer health units.
Sanofi India is coming off a lucrative fourth quarter, which had a 45% jump in sales compared to the same period the year before. The report, coming last month, sparked a 5% gain in shares.
Separating Sanofi India would be a similar move to what the company did in 2021 when it sold the rights to eight over-the-counter and four prescription products to Brazil’s Hypera for $190 million. Earlier in 2021, Sanofi sold 16 consumer health products to Stada of Germany, which made them for sale in 13 countries in Europe. Sanofi also off-loaded seven anti-inflammatory drugs to Fidia Farmaceutici of Italy.
Sanofi said then that simplifying the product portfolio was part of the company’s strategy to “focus resources and efforts where they could bring the most value.”
After sales in Sanofi’s consumer unit declined 1.9% during the pandemic in 2020, they rebounded with a 4.6% increase in 2021, followed (PDF) by a 6.6% percent gain last year.
In an effort to beef up its pharma sector pipeline, Sanofi has turned to M&A. Earlier this month, the company paid $2.9 billion to acquire Provention Bio and its immunotherapy Tzield. The move came after Sanofi's lost a bidding war to acquire Horizon Therapeutics. Amgen eventually made the deal for $27.8 billion.