Sanofi in deal to transfer Toulouse centre to Evotec
PARIS (Reuters) - Sanofi has entered exclusive talks to transfer its Toulouse research and development site to German rival Evotec , the French drugmaker said on Tuesday.
Under the agreed deal, to be signed in the first half of 2015, Sanofi said it would transfer its on-site research and development jobs and activities to Evotec.
Sanofi said it had also committed to spend 250 million euros (198 million pounds) over five years on future research programmes outsourced to a site in southern France, which employs 211 people.
The fate of the research centre has been problematic for Sanofi, which had agreed last year under French government pressure to keep it operating until 2018.
The Evotec deal "could represent a valuable opportunity for the site and for its employees, as it will ensure the success and sustainability of the activities", Sanofi global research chief Elias Zerhouni said in a company statement.
Werner Lanthaler, Evotec's chief executive, earlier told Reuters that the Toulouse site would be a valuable asset for the German biotech firm.
Managers at Sanofi, which recently sacked its chief executive, met Toulouse labour representatives earlier on Tuesday to present the agreement with Evotec.
For more than two years, Sanofi had been engaged in a dispute with unions over the future of the centre, underlining the difficulty of cutting jobs in France.
France accounts for just 8 percent of Sanofi's revenue but close to half of its research staff.
The Evotec deal may help to allay investor concerns that Sanofi is too heavily dependent on France, following the October departure of German-Canadian CEO Chris Viehbacher, ousted over his go-it-alone management style.
Major drugmakers have been closing laboratories around the world and regrouping operations into regional hubs to cut costs and squeeze more from research and development, in the face of generic competition and tightening healthcare budgets.
In 2012, under pressure from the newly elected Socialist government, Sanofi scaled down a French restructuring plan to cut 900 jobs instead of the 2,500 previously envisaged.
($1 = 0.8068 euros)
(Reporting by Natalie Huet and Noelle Mennella; Writing by Laurence Frost; Editing by Andrew Callus and Susan Thomas)
