SANOFI BUYS OUT SANOFI WINTHROP RX BUSINESS

French drugs and beauty products company Sanofi has bought for $1.675 billion (1.4 times annual sales) the human prescription drug business of its Sanofi Winthrop alliance (set up in 1991), the company announced as the Marketletter was going to press.

The acquisition, with $1.2 billion of sales, will result in Sanofi having total Rx drug sales of over $3.2 billion, and will be paid for in cash, financed by bank loans, Sanofi Winthrop Ltd's chairman and chief executive Gordon Procter revealed. It is hoped to offset this cost by the sale of Sanofi's stake in the alliance's over-the-counter medicines activities back to Eastman Kodak (Sterling Winthrop's parent company) as well as the divestiture of other Sanofi "bio-industries" non-core businesses, such as animal health, flavors/fragrances, rendering and seeds.

Divestments could also include the $400 million turnover imaging operations which are in the Sanofi Winthrop deal (and include various licensing activities) because, as Mr Procter pointed out, although this is a good business built up by Sterling Winthrop, it is outside Sanofi's own area of experience.