Less than a year after having to stop the sale of its generic biogarán subsidiary, Servier wants to return the cover. The pharmaceutical group entered into exclusive discussions with a European fund of British origin, BC Partners, already involved in 2024.
“The conditions of the transaction are still confidential,” the two companies in a joint statement said on Wednesday. But, according to a source close to the file, the BC Partners offer amount is included “between 800 million and one billion euros” for the acquisition of the largest brand of genericians in France.
Last year a identical amount was traveling, when BC Partners had presented an offer together with the Bpifrance Public Investment Bank to buy Biogaran, facing two Indian candidates Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Aurobindo Pharma. In a detail: BC did not offer this amount, which wanted to bet 600 million with the BPI, but for the Aurobindo Indian group.
However, the perspective of a sale of Biogaran, which has more than 30% of the market quotas in the generic segment that was sold in pharmacies in France, quickly found the concerns of the political class. Given a potential risk of relocation, calls to preserve the sovereignty of health had mutilated in the context of the recurring scarcity of generic in Europe and France.
Former Economy Minister Roland Lescure had opposed an operation with Aurobindo. And the BC Partners offer: Bpifrance quickly proved to be insufficient quickly.
Servier had thrown the sponge
Servier, the second French pharmaceutical laboratory, had decided in September “to end the discussions with the interested actors” and suspended the transfer project, considering that the planned operation did not meet its expectations in terms of “value creation.” It is not enough to discourage BC Partners, who is responsible for less than a year later, but this time alone.
The fund, which has had an office in Paris since 1986 and a French boss, had accepted during his first attempt a certain number of conditions that the Government raised, such as the maintenance in France of the central office and a large majority of drug production. These terms remain intact, according to a source close to the file.
“Growth potential”
“BC Partners intends to continue strengthening the position of Biogaran as a key supplier of pharmaceutical products in the French market and accelerate its growth potential in new segments,” said the press release.
The Paneuropeo Fund sees in the development of generic, biosimilar (less expensive copies of organic medicines, cell products or living organisms) and the sale of medications without recipe growth axes for biogarán and “new important levers to reduce the costs of the French health system.”
BC Partners also affirms its experience in the generic sector with investments in the Greek manufacturer Pharmathen and the Dutch Synthon.
The fruit of this operation should, according to him, allow Servier to “accelerate its approach, especially in innovative treatments in oncology and neurology and continue its creation of value in France.”
Created by Servier more than 25 years ago, Biogaran has approximately 240 employees, but above all it weighs through its 39 subcontractors in France, manufacturing half of its medication portfolio, which “now covers all therapeutic fields, daily pathologies with those heaviest (antidiabetics and antidiabetics and anti -diper)” and represent 8,600 works.
According to the Annual Servier 2023 report, Biogaran represents less than a quarter of its turnover, 5.9 billion euros in the last financial year.
Source: BFM TV
