Sanofi cleared to buy Zentiva

pharmafile | February 11, 2009 | News story | Sales and Marketing |  Sanofi, generics 

The European Commission says Sanofi-Aventis can go ahead with its planned acquisition of Czech generics company Zentiva.

The Commission had been concerned that the deal would be anti-competitive, but has now agreed the deal can go ahead if 15 selected products are divested from the merged business.

Sanofi has been pursuing Zentiva since June 2008, making an opening bid worth $1.96 billion for the company. Zentiva's management rejected the overtures, forcing Sanofi to increase its offer to $2.6bn.

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Sanofi says buying the company is part of its strategy of expanding its presence in emerging markets that are characterised by high growth, low and medium disposable income and affordable pharma products, especially Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets.

To comply with the EU competition law Sanofi-Aventis has agreed to divest products from both groups in a limited number of CEE markets. The divested products collectively generate annual sales of around 18 million euros in 2007,which is less than 3% of Zentiva's consolidated sales for that year.

Sanofi-Aventis says it has made commitments to Zentiva with respect to the treatment of Zentiva employees and any potential redundancies.

Sanofi has also indicated that Zentiva will be run semi-autonomously, with Mr Jiri Michal to continue as chief executive and executive director of Zentiva once the merger is completed.

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