Sanofi acquires Kadmon biopharma firm for $1.9 billion

Sanofi, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France, announced its acquisition of the American biopharmaceutical firm, Kadmon. It was revealed that the deal is worth $1.9 billion and the French drugmaker made the purchase to further strengthen the growth of its transplant business line.

Sanofi shared the news about its latest acquisition on Wednesday, Sept. 8. The firm confirmed its purchase of Kadmon Holdings just a month after buying Translate BIO, another US-based biotech company for $3.2 billion.

According to Reuters, Sanofi offered to buy Kadmon in cash at $9.50 per share which is equivalent to more or less $1.9 billion. It was mentioned that both of the firms’ boards did not oppose the deal and granted approval for the deal to proceed.

“We are transforming and simplifying our General Medicines business and have shifted our focus on differentiated core assets in key markets,” Sanofi’s executive vice president of general medicines, Olivier Charmeil, said in a press release. “We are thrilled to add Kadmon's Rezurock to our well-established transplant portfolio. Our existing scale, expertise, and relationships in transplant create an ideal platform to achieve the full potential of Rezurock, which will address the significant unmet medical needs of patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease around the world.”

On the other hand, Kadmon’s president and chief executive officer, Harlan Waksal, M.D., said that they were thrilled as Sanofi acknowledged the value of its Rezurock oral medicine for GVHD or chronic graft versus host disease, a crippling immune-mediated condition that affects many blood cancer patients who underwent bone marrow transplants.

He added that by making use of the pharmaceutical company’s global resources and well-known expertise in developing and selling new medicines, Rezurock is now in a better position for international accessibility. Kadmon’s Rezurock is a drug for the treatment of both adults and patients who are 12 years and older. It was approved by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in July.

Finally, with Sanofi’s acquisition of Kadmon, the said medicine will now become the French pharma company’s third drug under its transplant medicine business. This is also its third major purchase in this year alone.