Zentiva, a Czech Republic-headquartered generics developer and manufacturer, has announced a transfer agreement under which it will acquire Sanofi’s manufacturing facility in Ankleshwar, India, for ₹261m ($36.5m).
Established in 1987, the facility has a chemistry and biotechnology development center, and manufactures both intermediates and pharmaceutical formulations, with a capacity to produce over six billion tablets annually.
Following the acquisition, Zentiva aims to further establish its supply of drug products to patients ‘in Europe and beyond’, according to a company statement, as well as to answer the increasing demand for affordable medicine.
Nick Haggar, the company’s CEO, stated that the site will be the largest in Zentiva’s network and that the team in India will play a ‘central role’ in the company’s operations.
A spokesperson for Zentiva told us that the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020.
To date, the Ankleshwar site has manufactured Sanofi’s brands including Combiflam (ibuprofen/paracetamol), Allegra (fexofenadine) and Amaryl (glimepiride), as well as generic drugs. Sanofi announced that the production of these products will be moved to the company’s Goa site in India, as well as to external manufacturing sites.
Rajaram Narayanan, managing director of Sanofi India, commented that the transaction aims to serve the company’s strategy to focus on manufacturing the company’s branded products.
According to Narayanan, the transaction was approved “given that the two companies share similar values and commitment towards serving patients and their employees.”
Former Sanofi’s European generics business, Zentiva, was sold to Advent in 2018 for $2.1bn (€1.9bn) and now operates independently.
Since then, the company has been taking steps to establish growth, with the acquisition of Romanian-based pharmaceutical company, Solacium, as well as that of UK-based Creo, a subsidiary of Amneal Pharmaceuticals.
Earlier this year, the company announced a $33m investment to expand its manufacturing site in Prague, Czech Republic.