By: Trushna Udgirkar
Source: www.mydigitalfc.com
French pharma major Sanofi is keen to boost its presence in India, after having acquired Shantha Biotech a couple of years ago, by investing around $300 million over the next three years. The company would set up a new vaccine manufacturing unit, which would be its largest unit globally.
“Shantha is very much in line with our strategy to ramp up sales in emerging markets. We are investing as much in R&D as in manufacturing and will set up a vaccine manufacturing facility close to the existing one. Even after the acquisition, we will spend $300 million over a three-year period to make a strong platform,” said Christopher A Viehbacher, CEO of Sanofi.
With this, the company hopes to get easy access to emerging markets. “Shantha hits two of our growth platforms, vaccines and emerging markets. Vaccine is the best place in the absolute healthcare sector, especially in an environment with resource constraints. There is no better investment you can make in healthcare than in prevention,” he said.
On R&D with Shantha, he said there are a host of other vaccines in the pipeline, which Sanofi did not have, such as HPV vaccine for cholera and cancer. “There is a higher predictability of success in biotech compared with small molecules. Also, as side-effects are lowered, rask is dropped too. I would say if a molecule has 20–30 per cent probability, a vaccine has 70-75 per cent,” he said.
Sanofi had faced a set of challenges when Shantha’s combination vaccine Shan5’s pre-qualification was cancelled by the World Health Organisation. However, Viehbancher last week said when WHO was in the country for inspection of manufacturing facilities, it also provided a pre-qualification nod for the vaccine, along with vaccines for Cholera and Tetanus and start with clinical trials.
The newer facility may help the company raise manufacturing from 5 million doses to 50 millon.
Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com/news/sanofi-keen-boost-india-presence-invest-300m-296
Source: www.mydigitalfc.com
French pharma major Sanofi is keen to boost its presence in India, after having acquired Shantha Biotech a couple of years ago, by investing around $300 million over the next three years. The company would set up a new vaccine manufacturing unit, which would be its largest unit globally.
“Shantha is very much in line with our strategy to ramp up sales in emerging markets. We are investing as much in R&D as in manufacturing and will set up a vaccine manufacturing facility close to the existing one. Even after the acquisition, we will spend $300 million over a three-year period to make a strong platform,” said Christopher A Viehbacher, CEO of Sanofi.
With this, the company hopes to get easy access to emerging markets. “Shantha hits two of our growth platforms, vaccines and emerging markets. Vaccine is the best place in the absolute healthcare sector, especially in an environment with resource constraints. There is no better investment you can make in healthcare than in prevention,” he said.
On R&D with Shantha, he said there are a host of other vaccines in the pipeline, which Sanofi did not have, such as HPV vaccine for cholera and cancer. “There is a higher predictability of success in biotech compared with small molecules. Also, as side-effects are lowered, rask is dropped too. I would say if a molecule has 20–30 per cent probability, a vaccine has 70-75 per cent,” he said.
Sanofi had faced a set of challenges when Shantha’s combination vaccine Shan5’s pre-qualification was cancelled by the World Health Organisation. However, Viehbancher last week said when WHO was in the country for inspection of manufacturing facilities, it also provided a pre-qualification nod for the vaccine, along with vaccines for Cholera and Tetanus and start with clinical trials.
The newer facility may help the company raise manufacturing from 5 million doses to 50 millon.
Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com/news/sanofi-keen-boost-india-presence-invest-300m-296
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