the essential
The French pharmaceutical giant, Sanofi, is selling off around a hundred brands sold without a prescription, including Doliprane. Enough to revive fears of a shortage of the best-selling molecule in France.
The world number five pharmaceutical company is selling off around a hundred of them. Sanofi has decided to sell Opella, its consumer health subsidiary, to the American fund CD&R, for more than 15 billion euros.
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Doliprane, Mucosolvan, Novanuit… why Sanofi is divesting from its non-prescription drugs and its consumer health business
Specializing in non-prescription products and food supplements, present in around a hundred countries, Opella markets very popular brands, such as Dulcolax, Lysopaïne, Maalox or the famous Doliprane. “This subsidiary is what we call in economics a cash cow,” explains health economist Frédéric Bizard. “It is risk-free, it guarantees annual financial flows of more than 5 billion euros, and offers a profitability of 20% of its operating profit.
Many questions
If Sanofi sells such a profitable activity, it is to refocus on segments with higher added value, such as oncology, infectious diseases and vaccines. “These innovative products are even more profitable and most Big Pharma adopt the same strategy as that of Sanofi, encouraged by the largest consulting firms. In reality, these are companies with primarily financial management, which are content to buy back and sell molecules to the highest bidders”, summarizes Frédéric Bizard.
This split raises many questions. On a social level, it raises the fear of layoffs on the historic Doliprane manufacturing sites. The factories in Lisieux, in Calvados and Compiègne, in Oise, produce more than 450 million boxes of France’s best-selling drug each year. “There should be some relocations, because it is a very easy product to develop, which does not require advanced technology,” warns the Health economist.
France served after the others
This is why the French Minister in charge of Industry Marc Ferracci requested commitments from Sanofi and the future buyer aimed at guaranteeing the “maintenance of the headquarters and decision-making centers on the national territory” and “the French industrial footprint of Opella.
Because the other issue is of course the country’s supply of paracetamol, which experienced tensions in France during the winter of 2022-2023. For Frédéric Bizard, the sale of Opella is “the guarantee of an accelerated shortage. Our purchase prices for Doliprane being lower than European prices and without any possible comparison with American prices, the French market will be served after all the others,” he predicts.
Such a situation could arise in the next three to five years, while Sanofi sheds the 50% it still holds in Opella. The operation constitutes, according to the economist, “a very bad signal in a country where pharmaceutical desertification continues to accelerate.”