Sanofi's $20B buy­out of Gen­zyme pays off again with Eu­ro­pean OK for first Nie­mann-Pick drug

Sanofi CEO Paul Hud­son has made clear his in­ten­tion to de­vel­op new rare dis­ease drugs and broad­en his com­pa­ny’s of­fer­ings. That ef­fort leaped for­ward on Fri­day with the EMA’s sign­ing off on the com­pa­ny’s — and the EU’s — first drug to treat the non-cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem man­i­fes­ta­tions of the rare and de­bil­i­tat­ing Nie­mann-Pick dis­ease.

The en­zyme re­place­ment ther­a­py, de­vel­oped to re­place pa­tients’ de­fi­cient or de­fec­tive en­zyme, known as acid sphin­gomyeli­nase, was first de­vel­oped by Gen­zyme, which Sanofi ac­quired for more than $20 bil­lion in 2011. That ac­qui­si­tion has al­so helped Sanofi pull in sales in the field of MS.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER