Of­fers upped and upped again, CEO-to-CEO calls and per­haps a veiled walk­out threat: In­side Sanofi CEO Paul Hud­son's first big buy­out

On May 19, Prin­cip­ia CEO Mar­tin Babler re­ceived an un­so­licit­ed email from the oth­er side of the plan­et. It was Sanofi CEO Paul Hud­son, and he want­ed to know if Babler had time to hop on the phone.

These were busy, like­ly stress­ful days for the fresh­man Big Phar­ma chief. The week pri­or, he had caused a mi­nor in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal con­tro­ver­sy when he told Bloomberg that the US would get first rights to pre-or­der of their Covid-19 vac­cine be­cause BAR­DA had in­vest­ed in it at risk. The words did not sit well in Sanofi’s home coun­try of France, where both the gov­ern­ment and chair­man Serge Wein­berg viewed the com­pa­ny as some­thing of a na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion. Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron had sum­moned Hud­son to the pres­i­den­tial palace and, ac­cord­ing to some lo­cal re­ports, they were meet­ing that day.

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