🔒Sanofi’s CT exit reflects challenges of growing state’s bioscience industry

Paris pharmaceutical giant Sanofi established a Connecticut presence in 2017 when it acquired a poster child of the state’s nascent bioscience industry, Protein Sciences Corp., in a deal valued at $750 million.

Now, Sanofi quietly plans to close Protein Sciences’ former headquarters at 1000 Research Parkway in Meriden and exit the state by the end of 2024.

A Sanofi spokesperson confirmed to the Hartford Business Journal that the company will move its Meriden manufacturing operations to Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, which has a state-of-the-art facility for production of pandemic flu vaccines.

The closure is part of a broader effort by Sanofi to consolidate its offices, and it reflects some of the challenges in growing the state’s bioscience industry, which employed 25,493 people in 2023, down slightly from 2022, but down 13.3% since 2001, according to data from the state Department of Labor.

Oftentimes, when small bioscience companies develop a successful drug they become acquisition targets for big pharma companies, which then control future decisions on local employment and real estate needs.

However, despite the number of jobs being down over the last few decades, the number of bioscience businesses in the state has more than doubled to 1,647, DOL data shows. The state’s bioscience industry also pays well, with an average salary of $138,650.

Protein Sciences, established in 1984, captured national attention in 2013 when it announced that its first-of-a-kind recombinant influenza vaccine, made with insect cells in an egg-free process, received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

The vaccine, called Flublok, was initially approved for people 18 to 49 years old. The FDA expanded its age indication to all adults 18 and over in 2014.

By 2016, Flublok became available in prefilled syringes.

At the time of the sale, Sanofi said the acquisition allowed it to “broaden its flu portfolio with a non-egg based vaccine.” It agreed to make an upfront payment of $650 million and pay up to $100 million upon achievement of certain milestones.

Meantime, the CEO of Protein Sciences at the time, Manon M.J. Cox, told the Hartford Business Journal in 2017 that Flublok would benefit from Sanofi’s expertise in the field of influenza vaccines.

Cox called the deal the “culmination of long-term and recent efforts to establish the firm’s products in the global market,” saying she was eager to retain an active role at the company.

“Since the company is being acquired for its technology, if anything, there are going to be more jobs because we have done a lot with a little,” Cox said at the time.

However, less than a year after the sale closed, Cox left the company.

After the sale, Sanofi continued to operate Protein Sciences’ lab in Meriden, which employed about 100 people.

Now, Sanofi said it plans to sell the 1000 Research Parkway property, which is composed of two buildings spanning about 19,000 square feet.

It also leases a third building across the street at 875 Research Parkway.

All three sites will close by the end of 2024, the spokesperson said.

Sanofi has been consolidating offices over the last several years. According to its 2023 annual report, the company said it seeks to disinvest from sites that are “non-core to our business model” and that “office space rationalization remain(s) an important goal to help us achieve a responsible environmental footprint.”

In a statement to HBJ, Sanofi said: “We will seek to employ as many of the impacted employees as possible within Sanofi. However, when we do implement changes, there are times that our people are affected. In these events, we provide multiple avenues of support through all transitions.”

Sanofi also leases 900,000 square feet of newly built office space in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it has consolidated a number of facilities from suburban areas, according to the Boston Globe. The company is Massachusetts’ largest life sciences employer.