Biogaran, leader in generic medicines in France, is for sale

Biogaran, leader in generic medicines in France, is for sale, Franceinfo reported on Thursday April 18, confirming information from the newspaper Les Échos. This subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Servier holds a portfolio of 900 different drugs. Four buyers are interested, including two Indian companies specializing in generic medicines.

Currently, 50% of Biogaran’s production is carried out in France and 90% in Europe. The French number one in generic medicines employs a total of 8,600 people, mainly subcontractors. But if one of the two Indian buyers wins, nothing guarantees the interest in maintaining manufacturing on French territory. If it wishes to block the sale, the Ministry of the Economy can always invoke the question of sovereignty.

Inflation and taxes

Last September, on franceinfo, the general director of Biogaran sounded the alarm about the difficulties encountered by the subsidiary, notably due to a tax on laboratories. Jérôme Wirotius thus assured that he had “very strongly and very strongly alerted the public authorities” that Biogaran could not “neither us, nor the other generic laboratories, can make it another year in a context of low prices, very high inflation and new taxes […] which are today confiscatory”.