Dive Brief:
- An India-based subsidiary of Sanofi said it will sell a manufacturing plant in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, to Advent International's Zentiva for 2,167 million rupees, or about $37 million.
- The site is Sanofi's oldest manufacturing facility in India and produces medications including Combiflam, Allegra and Amaryl. Production of those products will be moved to other sites including in Goa, according to a Sept. 11 Sanofi release posted to India's stock exchange.
- The transaction requires shareholder approval, however. Sanofi didn't give an estimated date for the closing of the deal.
Dive Insight:
The agreement builds on a much larger deal from last year, when Advent paid 1.9 billion euros, or $2.1 billion, for Sanofi's European generics business, Zentiva. Now, a Zentiva unit in India is taking over the Ankleshwar site, which manufactures more than 6 billion tablets a year.
Sanofi established the Ankleshwar facility in 1987. It has a chemistry and biotechnology development center and produces intermediates and pharmaceuticals, with a specialty in tablets.
Advent, a private equity firm, said it planned to turn Zentiva into a "new, independent European generics leader" when it bought the company. For Sanofi, the deal offered a way to refocus on brand-name medications as margins shrunk in generics.
"Sanofi's long-term strategy is to focus on manufacturing Sanofi branded products," said Rajaram Narayanan, managing director of Sanofi India Ltd., in the statement announcing the latest manufacturing facility transaction.
"Given that the two companies share similar values and commitment towards serving patients and their employees, the Board of Directors of Sanofi India Limited approved this transaction in the long-term interest of all stakeholders," he said.