Sanofi-aventis focused on patients

Taking into account the global evolution of the pharmaceutical market, Sanofi-aventis presents solid assets: its full range of prescription medications, vaccines, over-the-counter medications (OTC/OTX), animal health products, and a balanced presence on traditional and emergent markets. Always at the top of Portuguese rankings for the pharmaceutical industry, Sanofi-aventis intends to stay there as well as consolidate its position. As in France and other European countries, the Portuguese market is undergoing major changes: new laws on access to medication, patent expiries, cuts in public expenditure and the development of generics, for example.
General Manager of Sanofi-aventis in Portugal, Patrice Layrac, admits that “generic medication is penetrating deeper and deeper into the local market.” Furthermore since the Portuguese government has put in place a measure making generics free of charge to the country’s least privileged inhabitants. Even though the company is already present on the market with Winthrop, Patrice Layrac does not exclude the idea of going even further: “We would like to study the possibility of enlarging our presence in Portugal through partnerships.”
But for the moment, Sanofi-aventis is developing its activity in the country with its own medications, divided into seven therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, thrombosis, oncology, diabetes, central nervous system, internal medicine and vaccines.
In a country where cardiovascular illnesses are the prime cause of death, the Managing Director places his trust in the company’s “anti-hypertension medications that are used to treat over 15 % of hypertension patients”. Patrice Layrac takes this opportunity to sum up what he calls “the current strategy of Sanofi-aventis”, specifying that the company’s aim consists in focusing efforts on three axes of activity: “Maintaining our leadership on the Portuguese market, offering innovative medications, notably in the domains of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, thrombosis and cancer. Strengthening our presence on the generic and OTC markets, offering a wide range of products adapted to patient needs. And finally, become valued partners in health by privileging a client-focused approach, in view of providing patients with divers-ified health services and technologies, including innovative non-pharmaceutical solutions that can contribute to improvements in health and quality of life.”
The company’s interrelation with Portuguese industrial and medical realities also spreads to research. The group has held two clinical research units (MACO and CRU) in Portugal since 1989. One conducts clinical tests with the aim of registering new medications. The other, a branch of the company’s medical management, is currently carrying out 55 different studies, in close collaboration with the nation’s researchers. “The group also supports other studies, for example the first national register for peripheral arterial disease,” adds Patrice Layrac, as well as Portuguese researchers and research.
The group’s employees have also proven their initiative. For example, Commercial Directions had the idea of launching an appeal to find bone marrow donors within the company. The result: 200 more potential donors have been added to the national database, endowing Portugal with one of the highest numbers of donors per capita in the world. “Social responsibility is extremely important for us. We try to improve the quality of life of the least privileged populations,” emphasises the Managing Director. Via support for certain projects such as the one in Oeiras, a city close to Lisbon where the company is based, by participating in a programme for evaluating children’ obesity and the eating behaviour of primary-school children and for training parents and teaching teams in the benefits of healthy eating.
Last year, Sanofi-aventis Portugal took part in the humanitarian aid programme “Projects at home and abroad,” launched in 2007 by the mother company’s Humanitarian Partnerships Department In this framework, the Portuguese subsidiary will be developing a health education programme for women in Inhambane, in Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony.