Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis, the world’s fourth-largest drug company, with U.S. headquarters in Bridgewater, New Jersey, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to purchase Genzyme Corp., according to a report in The Boston Globe.
Genzyme employs 10,000 people worldwide and has a staff of 4,500 researchers and other workers in Massachusetts. Founded in 1981, it is headquartered in Cambridge.
The company is in the forefront of the biotechnology field, and “has been a leader in developing drugs for rare genetic disorders such as Gaucher and Fabry diseases, treatments that can cost up to $300,000 a year per patient,” reports the Globe. The biotechnology area of life sciences represents a critical target market that Sanofi-Aventis sees as necessary for its continued growth and success.
If offers a market opportunity in which Sanofi CEO, Christopher A. Viehbacher, expects Genzyme to help it expand. Sanofi already had a research and cancer operation in Cambridge, where it’s been adding hundreds of jobs, writes Robert Weisman, Globe staff writer.
Genzyme CEO Henri A. Termeer, who led his firm for 28 years, will resign when the deal is closed. He will walk away with about $23 million, and holds shares in Genzyme valued at about $275 million.
This merger will most likely result in a loss of jobs, despite the fact that Genzyme had already cut jobs last year to make itself leaner. Today’s Globe story reports that “the parties this morning said Genzyme will become Sanofi’s global center for rare diseases and keep ‘“a sizeable presence in the Greater Boston area.’’’
No mention whatsoever was made of the impact, if any – plus or minus, that this acquisition and merger would have on Sanofi-Aventis operations in Bridgewater – that was not discussed or mentioned in the Globe story.
No comments:
Post a Comment