According to a source close to the French investment fund, “an improved offer was made for an additional 200 million euros” compared to the offer presented a week ago in support of Abou’s funds. Dhabi Avia, Singaporean GIC, and Canadian BCI.
This source, however, did not specify the amount of the competing offer or its own.
Sanofi, for its part, does not wish to comment.
The pharmaceutical giant announced last week that it was negotiating with the American investment fund CD&R in order to potentially sell it 50% of Opella, its subsidiary which houses around a hundred brands of non-prescription products around the world, including Doliprane.
This strategic project, a new example of the refocusing of “Big Pharma” on innovation, quickly took a political turn given the popularity of this drug used to relieve pain and fever within French society.
The unions fear a “social breakdown” in the 1,700 jobs that Opella has on French soil, including 480 on its site in Compiègne (Oise) and 250 in its factory in Lisieux (Calvados), dedicated to this best-selling drug in France .
“We are sacrificing Doliprane and French health sovereignty on the altar of finance,” laments Humberto de Sousa, CFDT coordinator of the group, present in Compiègne, where around a hundred employees gathered.
Present, the left-wing deputy François Ruffin (ex-LFI) returned the “two sharks” candidates for takeover back to back, estimating: “The industrial sites must be in the hands of industrial players, and not of finance (…), the government must oppose it.”
For Adil Bensetra, CFDT elected to the CE, this new offer “demonstrates that the movement is working, that the lines are moving, but it is not enough because an investment fund always poses a problem for us”.
According to him, the employees decided to continue the walkouts after the announcement of the French offer.
In Lisieux, where 80 people mobilized on Thursday, “the strike movement is renewed” on Friday from 8 a.m., announced Johann Nicolas, CGT union delegate.
On the Mourenx site (Pyrénées-Atlantique), which employs around sixty employees and operates 24 hours a day, the call for strike is manifested by successive walkouts, during each working time slot.
“Scandalous”
Mobilized “to defend our heritage and to keep our work”, Isabelle Glais, technician in Lisieux, would have hoped that the State would “move a little more to keep us in France (…) because Doliprane is our baby “.
“It is scandalous that we allow boxes like that to leave our territories,” denounces the secretary general of the FO departmental union of Calvados, Mickaël Robe.
This project echoes the challenges of health policy in a context already marked by difficulties in supplying certain medicines, including shortages of paracetamol in winter 2022/23.
The outlines of this possible transaction are still under discussion, but the prospect of the arrival of a foreign financial player in the capital of Opella is worrying right up to the top of the State.
The president of Sanofi France, Audrey Duval, guaranteed Thursday on RTL the “sustainability” of jobs, production sites and Doliprane, before the start of a strike by several unions in the group to oppose the sale of its subsidiary OpellaAFP / Lou BENOIST.
For several days, the government has been trying to reassure about the future of the French Opella sites by increasing the number of declarations on the written commitments requested from stakeholders in terms of jobs and security of supply.
But the exercise is delicate since we must not scare away foreign investors at a time when the executive is in a logic of reindustrialization.
“This government is committed to maintaining Doliprane in France,” Economy Minister Antoine Armand assured the senators on Wednesday, adding that “maintaining employment is the absolute priority and will not be negotiable.”
But, he added, “if we really want France to be at the forefront of research, of industry, to be sovereign over all health technologies but not only that, we collectively believe that we can do without public and private funding?”
“Sustainability” of jobs
The president of Sanofi France, Audrey Duval, guaranteed on Thursday the “sustainability” of jobs, production sites and Doliprane.
Employees and unionists on strike in front of their factory which manufactures Doliprane in Lisieux (north-west of France), after the announcement by Sanofi of ongoing negotiations with the American investment fund CD&R in order to potentially sell it 50% of Opella, its subsidiary which markets this paracetamol in France. Photo taken October 17AFP / LOU BENOIST.
In vain. In the opposition, calls to block the sale are becoming urgent.
“Our objective is not to block the sale, it is to succeed through dialogue in obtaining written commitments,” said Maud Bregeon, government spokesperson, on Thursday.
In the midst of the Covid crisis, France has embarked on work to regain its health autonomy by seeking to relocate the production of certain medicines including paracetamol, the chemical compound of Doliprane.
The active ingredient has no longer been manufactured in France since 2008-2009 but a paracetamol production plant is being built on the Roussillon (Isère) site of the chemist Seqens, which has already signed contracts with Opella and Upsa (Dafalgan and Efferalgan).
