Sanofi to Buy Dynavax to Boost Vaccines Business

Watch Sanofi to Buy Dynavax to Boost Vaccines Business - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Is this deal a surprise for Sanofi?

00:03Very much so, because we're seeing this situation, obviously, where vaccines globally,

00:08we're seeing sort of a hit to vaccine sales. Sanofi itself has said at the last quarter

00:14that its vaccine sales were down. In the US, we have a health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy,

00:20who is almost systematically undermining some of the tenants of vaccines, really.

00:26But what we have seen is that's mainly targeting childhood vaccinations, and this deal is mainly

00:32focused on adult immunizations. So I'm assuming that Sanofi is hoping that adult immunizations

00:38are protected from those changes that we're seeing in the US. And obviously, this deal might take

00:45several years to sort of show true value for the company. So we might see changes in the rules

00:52around vaccines in the coming years in the US. Okay. So actually, that's the vaccine story

00:58around Sanofi. Today, Sanofi has also said that the US FDA rejected its drug for multiple sclerosis.

01:05What does that setback mean for the French drugmaker?

01:08So this is a significant blow. We'd already, in a way, expected difficulties with the submission.

01:16The FDA had already delayed the decision date, and we were expecting this to potentially come

01:23next year. It's a surprise that this has come so quickly. And it's also a significant blow,

01:29potentially, to patients with a specific type of MS, which have few options. But for Sanofi,

01:35which is really trying to replace its leading drug, Dupixent, and that's coming, generics are coming

01:41in the next couple of years for that drug. And this MS drug was supposed to sort of help it

01:47on its way to sort of replace those revenues. So this rejection in the US is going to be significant

01:53for it. Sanofi seems to hope that there's still a way forward, and it's still discussing with us

01:59with the FDA. But obviously, it is a significant blow. This was the potential for 1.7 billion US dollars

02:06and peak annual revenue, which would, you know, those sales will only potentially come from the

02:12rest of the world now.