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EyesOn Industry News - Sanofi & Merck KGaA
- Jana Chisholm
- 22 hours ago
- 5 min read
This week we had EyesOn news about Merck KGaA and Sanofi and their corporate activities. Read about the antitrust proceedings against Sanofi and their Flu vaccine, and how the new CEO of Merck is changing their strategic direction with M&A.
The European Commission claims to have initiated formal proceedings in an antitrust probe against the French pharmaceutical company nine months after conducting an unexpected visit of Sanofi’s premises.
According to the EU, the investigation focuses on Sanofi’s promotion of Efluelda, their flu vaccine for elderly people who are at risk, and whether it disparages CSL Seqirus’ Flaud, its only competitor in the indications.
The Commission stated that it is worried about Sanofi’s deceptive marketing effort, which depicts Flaud as inferior to Efluelda and violates national vaccination guidelines in a number of Member States.
According to the EC, the campaign mainly targeted medical professionals in France and Germany.
According to the Commission, Sanofi’s message implies that Fluad is supported by weaker evidence of its effectiveness, which runs counter to recommendations from national immunisation advisory bodies in Germany and France as well as the European Center for Disease Control.
Additionally, according to the European Commission, Sanofi misrepresented national vaccine recommendations and asserted that there are unresolved scientific challenges to national recommendations from German medical societies.
The EC further stated that Sanofi has a strong lead over CSL in both markets.
A representative for Sanofi noted in an email response that the Commission has approved a preliminary evaluation that will allow the business to resolve the EC’s concerns.
Sanofi has stated that their compliance with relevant laws and regulations is certain, including competition legislation, and that this will continue. The corporation further stated that the initiation of formal proceedings is merely routine and has no bearing on the investigation’s conclusion.
Investigators examined Sanofi locations in Germany and France in September of last year.
CSL reported $901 million in sales of trivalent Fluad in its most recent fiscal year, a 14% fall. The company attributed the drop to lower demand in the US.
Sales of each of Sanofi’s specific vaccines are not disclosed. In the United States, Efluelda, a quadrivalent shot, is marketed as Fluzone HD. An EC antitrust investigation of CSL’s Vifor division in 2022 focused on the company’s possible disparagement of Pharmacosmos’ high-dose intravenous iron replacement drug Monofer, a European rival of Vifor’s flagship iron medication, Ferinject. CSL resolved the inquiry in 2024 by addressing the claimed anticompetitive practices through an advertising campaign.
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Kai Beckmann, the previous head of Merck KGaA’s electronics division, is now leading the entire conglomerate. The new CEO is establishing himself with a significant investment to boost the company’s life sciences division.
In order to purchase Bio-Techne Corporation, a Minneapolis-based supplier and producer of life science instruments, analytical technologies, and consumables, Merck KGaA has agreed to pay $73 per share in cash. This amounts to a total consideration of about $11.3 billion. In June of last year, Merck KGaA stated that the transaction represents a 36% premium over Bio-Techne’s one-month average selling price.
Merck KGaA thinks that by combining the firms’ capabilities, it will be able to better serve customers in all areas of the business, including development, testing, and commercial manufacturing, as well as those involved in discovery and translational research.
Beckmann, who succeeded Belén Garijo at Merck at the beginning of May, described the agreement in a statement as a significant step toward achieving the company’s mid- to long-term strategic objective.
The company stated that it is in a strong position to address some of the most significant opportunities in life sciences and assist customers in accelerating the next generation of scientific discovery and therapeutic innovation by combining Bio-Techne’s scientific departments, innovation engine, and unique portfolio with the global scale, manufacturing excellence, and customer reach of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
The transaction is part of Merck KGaA’s life science division, which works alongside its main electronics and healthcare businesses. Sales of the company’s life science division increased by little less than 1% in 2025 to approximately $10.19 million. The company’s operations include contract manufacturing and development services, as well as the provision of tools and supplies for researchers and developers.
This is Merck KGaA’s biggest deal since its $17 billion acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich in 2015. Last week, Merck KGaA stated that it anticipates the purchase closing in late 2026 or early 2027.
A well-known range of cytokines, growth factors, antibodies, and immunoassay kits are among the assets and competencies that Merck KGaA is expected to acquire as a result of the deal. Along with other technologies that potentially strengthen Merck KGaA’s position in spatial biology and diagnostics, the German healthcare and electronics company will also have access to Bio-Techne’s ProteinSimple line of automated protein detection and analysis instruments.
According to Merck, Bio-Techne’s well-established position as a supplier of materials, analytics, and process technologies to cell therapy researchers will further strengthen the merged company’s bottom line.
Currently employing over 3,000 people, around 2,300 of whom are based in the United States, Bio-Techne has its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The corporation has 15 production facilities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and China, and 34 locations worldwide.
Merck KGaA stated that it believes the acquisition will benefit its process solutions business unit, specifically its contracting services, by extending its reach into higher-value reagents, analytics, and cell and gene therapy workflows, even though a significant portion of the deal appears to be focused on the supplier potential of Bio-Techne’s offerings. According to the firm, the acquisition may also improve Merck KGaA’s capacity for production, research, and development.
In addition to its significant acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich, Merck KGaA has recently completed a number of high-profile acquisitions, such as the $1.4 billion purchase of semiconductor materials supplier Versum in 2019 and the $3.9 billion purchase of rare illness specialist SpringWorks Therapeutics last year.
Back in September, Merck declared that after five years as CEO, Garijo, who oversaw the German company throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, would retire and hand over the reins to Beckmann. Merck KGaA, has felt particularly vulnerable to current geopolitical tensions between China and the West as well as erratic U.S. trade policies.
Beckmann made his ambitions known early in his tenure, promising to expand Merck KGaA’s M&A scope during a conference call in May.
In additional commentary, Danny Bar Zohar, the CEO of Merck’s healthcare division, said that the company’s early-to mid-stage pipeline needs to be expanded to go beyond the company’s guidance for the early next decade, suggesting that Beckmann was primarily thinking about Merck’s pharmaceutical business. Bar Zohar stated that the organization must begin developing this right away.
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