Sanofi announced that it had started “exclusive negotiations” with the American group CR&D for the sale of Opella, which markets Doliprane. But the French State, which has become a shareholder, will ensure compliance with several commitments.
The Doliprane will indeed pass under the American flag, but not without supervision from the French state. The Sanofi group announced this Monday, October 21, to begin “exclusive negotiations” with the American investment fund CD&R “for the transfer of a 50% controlling interest” in its subsidiary Opella, which produces and markets around a hundred drugs, including Doliprane.
But a third party was added to the agreement concluded between Sanofi and CD&R: the French State. The sale of Opella, which is the third company in the world in the non-prescription medicines sector and which is above all the owner of the famous yellow box medicine, shook France. And for good reason, the French who consume 400 million boxes of Doliprane each year feared seeing the drug disappear from pharmacies or be sold at higher prices. From an economic point of view, the Opella company represents 1,700 employees in France out of the 11,000 people employed throughout the world and two of the thirteen production sites which manufacture paracetamol, the active ingredient in Doliprane. Achievements that the French State wished to protect and for which it became a shareholder of the group as announced by the Minister of the Economy, Antoine Armand, on the evening of Sunday October 20.
According to the agreement concluded between the three parties, the American group CD&R must obtain 50% of the company Opella while the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi retains 48% of the group and the French State.[doit] participate as a minority shareholder of approximately 2%” via the public investment bank Bpifrance. The State will also have a seat on the board of directors of Opella so “BPI will be able to ensure the internally that the commitments made, which are accompanied by heavy financial sanctions, are well followed. That’s the mission of this participation,” Bercy said.
Doliprane sold against several guarantees
The Ministry of the Economy has effectively set conditions for the sale of Opella, and therefore of Doliprane, among others. But the minister’s entourage ensured on Sunday evening, according to Les Echosthat “the whole week was devoted to the negotiation of these commitments” and that “we managed to obtain guarantees up to what was requested, we even managed to improve them”. Among these commitments, the first and most important concerns the maintenance of the governance of Opella in France as well as the maintenance of jobs and industrial activities already existing in France.
The American investment fund which is preparing to become the owner of Doliprane was also forced to give other guarantees: the commitment to continue supplying the French market with four drug molecules produced by Opella (paracetamol, aspirin and two gastric protectants, lansoprazole and pantoprazole); but also the commitment to ensure and secure the supply of the French market with medicines produced elsewhere than in France. The last guarantee required from the CD&R group is that of growing the Opella group with investments for internal growth or acquisition in order to develop the Sanofi subsidiary.
The financial resources of the investment fund largely explain the sale of the company producing Doliprane. But if the request expressed by the French State is certainly aimed at the evolution of the group, it must above all serve to avoid a restructuring and a total resale of Opella, an outcome feared by the group’s employees and unions.