Diabetes, autoimmune diseases… Sanofi will make a big acquisition in the United States

This is a new big blow for Sanofi. The French pharmaceutical group announced on Monday an agreement to acquire the American biotech Provention Bio for 2.9 billion dollars, with a view to strengthening “its expertise in diabetes” and against immune diseases. “Sanofi will launch a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Provention Bio, Inc. at a price of $25,” the company said in a statement.

On Friday at the close, the price of Provention Bio, a biotech listed in New York on the Nasdaq, an index with a strong technological component, was 6.70 dollars, much less than the price purchased by Sanofi. Provention Bio is a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of drugs that can prevent and intercept immune-mediated diseases, including type 1 diabetes.

Preventative treatment for diabetes

With this acquisition, Sanofi is notably targeting an “innovative” treatment, TZIELD (teplizumab-mzwv), approved last year in the United States and the only one indicated to delay the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes in adults and children. child from eight years old. Patients whose type 1 diabetes progresses to the clinical stage of the disease end up needing insulin injections all their life, adds the laboratory.

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“The acquisition of Provention Bio fits perfectly with Sanofi’s mission to offer medicines that are either the first or the best in their pharmacotherapeutic class”, welcomed Olivier Charmeil, executive vice-president General medicine at Sanofi, quoted in the press release.

Acquisition in mid-2023

Provention Bio also develops treatments for autoimmune diseases. The takeover bid is subject to the green light from the competition authorities. After the closing of the offer, a subsidiary of Sanofi will merge with Provention Bio. The laboratory plans to “finance this operation by drawing on its cash” and to finalize the acquisition in the second quarter of 2023.

More than 420 million people currently suffer from diabetes, a serious chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin. The number of such patients has almost quadrupled in the past 40 years worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

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