Sanofi Aventis is a company that specializes in multinational pharmaceutical sales and is the fifth-largest seller of prescription drugs. The company started out as only being Sanofi, but merged with Aventis back in 2004. Sanofi-Aventis handles research and development, manufacturing as well as the marketing for pharmaceutical drugs while also developing their own over the counter drug products. If you aren’t that familiar with the company, here are five things you didn’t know about Sanofi-Aventis.
5. L’Oreal owns stock in the company
Surprisingly, the French cosmetic and beauty company L’Oreal actually owns stock in Sanofi-Aventis. The company’s stock breaks down into 89.49% being publicly traded, 1.31% for employees, 0.27% are treasury shares, and L’Oreal owns the remaining 8.93% of the company.
4. They actually dropped the “Aventis” portion of their name
Back in 2011 the company went from being Sanofi-Aventis to just Sanofi. This was approved at the annual general meeting and was decided because people believed it would help the company in foreign countries like China because the name would be easier to understand and pronounce. There would also be less confusion without a hyphen and only one name to focus on.
3. They bid on Merck & Co.’s over-the-counter unit
In March of this year, the company placed a bid to acquire Merck & Co.’s over-the-counter health-products unit. This would have given them access and control of products like Coppertone Sunblock and Claritin allergy medicine. This was a highly sought out unit of Merck & Co. with valuable assets and it is believed that the bids were ranging from anywhere between $10 and $12 million.
2. They control one of the world’s top selling drugs
With the acquisition of Aventis came control of one of the world’s best selling drugs; Plavix. This drug is used to help avoid getting blood clots in diseases like coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease and others. Sanofi was worried that in the process of the merger they would lose the rights and control of the drug; however, that was not the case and it is still very valuable.
1. The company does a lot of collaborative research
Sanofi-Aventis actually participates in a lot of collaborative research with other companies. They seem to be focused on trying to create new products and don’t mind sharing the profits with other companies to make that happen. In the past some notable collaborative work has included Charite University of Berlin and on the entire Eloxatin cancer treatment.
Photo by Graeme Robertson/Getty Images
