Sanofi-Aventis to invest €10m in Poland in 2010

2010-03-09

Sanofi-Aventis aims to invest about €10m in Poland in 2010, Hanspeter Spek, its chief operating officer, said in an interview with Rzeczpospolita. At the same time he signalled that the company had no plans to develop a direct-to-pharmacy distribution system in the country.
The French pharma firm is considering to expand its factory in Rzeszow. The plant is the central pillar of Sanofi’s Polish operation, putting out 37 million units of medicines per year. The company has already invested €25m there, most of it last year, but the facility is now operating at full capacity, prompting plans of an enlargement. It is not clear whether it will convert the distribution centre located on the Rzeszow site, or buy new land there and build a greenfield plant.
Sanofi-Aventis is currently eyeing potential acquisitions as part of a strategy to diversify from Rx medicines into vaccines, veterinary products, diagnostic equipment and OTC drugs. Spek said that one area in which it might potentially look for targets in Poland was biotechnology, but that Bioton was not a potential target.
In the words of Spek, the French firm should complete the acquisition of Bioton-Wostok “in a matter of weeks”.