Deal-Making in the Current Environment

In an average year, Sanofi signs more than 1000 confidential disclosure agreements (CDAs), makes 20 to 30 deals, and acquires 5 to 10 companies. Leading all of that partnering and collaboration activity is Alban de La Sabliére, Sanofi’s Senior VP and Global Head of Partnering. He leads a global partnering team split 40/40/20 between France, the United States, and the rest of the world and is responsible for the nearly 50 deals that France’s largest pharmaceutical company strikes each year.

“Most of the time, the best science is outside of Sanofi and outside of our competitors,” La Sabliére explained, making partnering essential for the largest pharma companies. Sanofi is committed to a heterogenous partnering approach, eschewing the ‘platform only’ approach that is gaining popularity elsewhere and instead seeking a mix of platform, early and late-stage clinical assets, and acquisitions of mature players. No matter the development stage, for La Sabliére, a deal begins with a germ of excitement, and his team needs to be enthusiastic about the potential of the fundamental science or the positive patient outcomes.

La Sabliére emphasized that it’s critical partnering teams maintain a dialogue between their partnering and scientific teams. He revealed that he and his team meet nearly daily with Sanofi’s R&D teams and that the entire company benefits from aligning their business development and research teams. Sanofi sees great value in having a shared, centralized system for these teams to work on partnering together, and La Sabliére insisted that this makes managing his team easier and their work more effective.