Abstract
Sanofi is a French multinational pharmaceutical company that was formed in 2004 with the merger of Sanofi-Synthélabo and Aventis. The company is specialized in research and development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products. It is the world's fourth larger company by prescription sales and the fifth in the generic pharmaceutical industry. The company covers several therapeutic areas like cardiovascular, diabetes, thrombosis, vaccines and others. The pharmaceutical industry is considered as one of the most important and profitable industry in the world.
With a population that is constantly growing and people that are living longer the pharmaceutical industry is very prosperous. There are also a lot of emerging market like China, Russia, South Korea and Mexico that are very interesting for the big pharmaceutical companies. Today we estimate the global spending on prescription drugs at more than €650 billion .
The problem with this industry is that it is saturated. There are many big companies on the market like Sanofi, Bayer, or Pfizer. The competition is very harsh and doesn't give any place for new entrants. The industry is also not very innovative because of all the regulations pharmaceutical companies have to face. It is very difficult for them to launch new products because they necessitate many years of research and development. The test phase is very long for medication. Companies tries to compete with each other by trying to be more efficient and productive and secure all their patents in order to keep and advantage on the competition.
