Can the US$3.2 billion be exchanged for Sanofi's "curve overtaking"?

Prior to this, Sanofi and Translate Bio had already cooperated, and the revolutionary innovation platform was truly integrated into the company, fully betting on the next generation of potential technologies, in order to further enhance the innovation capabilities in the fields of tumors, immunity, and vaccines.

mRNA innovation technology

Trigger the giants sought after

Industry insiders told the "Pharmaceutical Economic News" that the main advantages of mRNA drugs as targeted nucleic acid drugs include a large number of targets, a large space for exploration, and almost all diseases

At present, target function screening, drug action mechanism, drug activity design, functional screening, and macromolecular transmembrane carrier technology are the core technologies of this type of drug.

In the field of vaccines, the principle of mRNA vaccines is to directly inject mRNAs encoding antigen proteins into human cells, using human cells to produce protein antigens to activate the immune response.

The traditional egg-based production method has a long cycle and high cost, and the vaccine market often changes drastically, especially for influenza vaccines.

As a "core player" in the vaccine market, Sanofi has the most real feelings about the market disruption that may be triggered by innovative technologies

As early as 2015, Sanofi reached a research cooperation with BioNTech at that time with an advance payment of 60 million US dollars and milestones.

  In 2018, Sanofi signed a cooperation and exclusive license agreement with Translate Bio to develop mRNA vaccines for up to 5 infectious disease pathogens

  The sudden emergence of the new crown epidemic has not only allowed the leapfrog development of mRNA technology, but also allowed many multinational pharmaceutical giants to see huge technological potential

  In April of this year, Sanofi successfully acquired Tidal Therapeutics.

  Sanofi obviously has great expectations for the disruptive and innovative value of the mRNA technology platform, which directly contributed to its re-launch in just three months after the acquisition of Tidal Therapeutics and officially included Translate Bio in the company's business map

Sudden changes in the competitive landscape

How does Sanofi catch up?

  Merck, GSK, Pfizer, and Sanofi are the "big four" in the international vaccine field.

  Merck has accumulated huge popularity by relying on the star HPV vaccines Gardasil and Gardasil 9; GSK's shingles vaccine Shingrix is ​​gaining more and more attention as its flagship product in the new era.

  The delicate balance of the “balance” in the vaccine market is being broken due to the epidemic
.
Based on the continuous increase in demand for vaccines, the mRNA vaccines jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech continue to increase in volume, becoming Pfizer's highest-selling product
.
  

  On July 28, Pfizer announced its second-quarter 2021 financial report.
The second-quarter revenue was US$18.
997 billion, and the total revenue in the first half of the year was US$33.
5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 68%.
It is expected that the annual revenue is expected to reach US$80 billion
.
In 2020, Pfizer's total revenue from all businesses for the whole year is only 41.
9 billion U.
S.
dollars
.
  

  The industry generally expects that this mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech will leap to the throne of the "drug king" by the end of this year, becoming the drug with the highest sales in history
.
Pfizer plans to submit an emergency use authorization application for the third dose to the US FDA as early as August this year, so as to consolidate its dominant position in the global vaccine field
.
  

  In contrast, GSK has repeatedly developed vaccines in cooperation with a number of companies
.
In July 2020, GSK announced its cooperation with CureVac to jointly research, develop, manufacture and commercialize up to 5 mRNA vaccines and monoclonal antibodies against infectious disease pathogens
.
However, in June this year, CureVac announced that the results of the second interim analysis of the mRNA vaccine candidate 2b/3 study showed that the effectiveness was only 47%, which did not meet the pre-specified statistical success criteria
.
  

  Merck acquired Themis in May last year.
It had hoped to advance research and development through the traditional route of weak viruses.
However, due to the unsatisfactory results of phase 1 clinical research, the company was "disheartened" in the development of candidate vaccines and completely announced its abandonment
.
  

  Although Sanofi "gets up early" in mRNA technology, it has not been able to catch up with the "bazaar" to get its due.
Up to now, Sanofi has not been able to use mRNA vaccines to make achievements in the subdivision field
.
Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson (Paul Hudson) previously publicly stated that the company's mRNA new crown vaccine product may not be available this year
.
  

  In February last year, Sanofi announced an agreement with the U.
S.
Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA) to accelerate the development of a new crown vaccine using the genetic recombination technology platform.
Two months later, Sanofi and GSK reached a cooperation, and GSK will provide the vaccine.
Research and development provide adjuvant technology
.
  

  The gene recombination technology platform that was given high hopes also originated from a capital operation in July 2017
.
Sanofi acquired the baculovirus expression platform owned by the company through the acquisition of Protein Sciences
.
At that time, the "US$650 million advance payment + US$100 million milestone payment" also caused heated discussions in the industry.
After all, the one-time payment was up to 6 times the advance payment of the later milestone payment, which fully demonstrated Sanofi's ambition for Protein Sciences
.
  

  However, the genetic recombination technology platform does not seem to allow Sanofi to really "accelerate" in this vaccine competition.
Until now, the genetic recombination vaccine developed by Sanofi and GSK is still "on the road
.
" In November last year, the two parties jointly announced that they would postpone the launch of their recombinant protein vaccines to the end of 2021.
The reason is that the recombinant protein vaccines under development need to be modified due to their poor immune effect on the elderly.
It is planned to be listed in the second quarter of 2021
.
    

Opportunity and risk coexist

The pressure of global competition is not small

  In 2020, Sanofi’s annual net income will reach 36.
04 billion euros.
Although innovative drugs and vaccines business still have a good growth momentum, they are affected by mature product markets such as Plavix (clopidogrel) and Ambovi (irbesartan).
The sharp decline dragged down the overall performance of the year by 0.
2% year-on-year
.
  

  Ten years ago, Sanofi focused on the diversification strategy, but the company’s strategy has changed in recent years.
Whether it is mergers and acquisitions focusing on the company’s phased development strategy or investment in cutting-edge technologies, the technological layout is leading Business benefits are also accompanied by risks
.
  

  Czech Zentiva Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired for US$1.
96 billion, has long been sold again; part of the business sector obtained by swapping Merial’s animal insurance business with Boehringer Ingelheim’s over-the-counter drug business is now also considering divestiture; US$80 million to buy shares in Xikang Bio , Due to a "technology theft" lawsuit between Xikang Biotechnology and Roche (Genentech), the rights and interests of a variety of bio-similar drug products disappeared.
.
.
  

  Today, Sanofi is actively transforming and accelerating capital operations to cope with the short-term "nothing" situation of innovative products after Dupixent
.
Take the Chinese market as an example.
According to the plan, it will launch more than 25 new products in China before 2025
.
  

  In terms of vaccines, Sanofi is still increasing its investment, especially focusing on mRNA technology
.
At the end of June this year, Sanofi announced an annual investment of approximately 400 million euros to establish an mRNA vaccine center of excellence to accelerate the end-to-end research and development of a new generation of mRNA vaccines.
It plans to develop 6 clinical stage candidates within 4 years
.
  

  However, Sanofi is not the only company that covets the global market segment and hopes to overtake the car through mRNA technology innovation opportunities, or to strengthen the vaccination business (that is, to strengthen the antibody through re-vaccination after vaccination).

.
  In addition to Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Janssen and other companies are also increasing their efforts .
In January of this year, Bayer and CureVac reached a strategic cooperation.
Bayer will provide professional knowledge and build mature infrastructure for the clinical operations, regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, medical information, and supply chain performance of CureVac vaccines .
  

  

  Many Chinese companies are also making continuous efforts in vaccine research and development and supply.
According to the strategic determination of "China will strive to provide 2 billion doses of vaccine to the world throughout this year", the global vaccine competition situation will continue to change rapidly
.
  

  Of course, as mentioned earlier, the strategic significance of Sanofi's acquisition of Translate Bio is far more than just the new crown vaccine products.
The technology platform itself is the core asset it pursues
.
Paul Hudson also said: "Sanofi's goal is to explore the potential of mRNA technology and develop vaccines in other strategic areas such as immunology, oncology and rare diseases
.
"