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Sanofi-Aventis' recent consumer health shopping spree places the French firm on track to become one of the world's leading OTC and supplement players in a relatively short time.
In the last two months, Sanofi moved to acquire Chattem, which opens the door to the U.S. consumer health care market, and entered a joint venture focused on vitamins and minerals with China-based Minsheng Pharmaceutical Group, which allows entrance to China's booming VMS business. "The Tan Sheet" detailed these deals here and here.
The deals follow a series of other recent OTC acquisitions by Sanofi in Australia, France, the Netherlands and Argentina.
Altogether these deals put Sanofi well on its way to doubling its consumer health business in the next five years – a goal CEO Chris Viehbacher described in "The Tan Sheet" here. Sanofi reported in November that its OTC business reached $2.2 billion, combined with Chattem's reported $463.3 million in revenue in 2009, Sanofi is more than half way to its goal of roughly $2.8 billion by 2014.
Viehbacher proposed a similar strategy to expand GlaxoSmithKline's consumer business when he was the U.K.-based firm's executive director and president of North American Pharmaceuticals. Read here about this strategy and how diversifying business could cushion the blow of impending Rx drug patent cliffs that many pharma firms face.
-- Elizabeth Crawford
