EXCLUSIVE: EMS and Aché advance to the next phase and are the favorites to buy Medley, from the French company Sanofi.

Pharmaceutical companies EMS and Aché are the favorites in the process of acquiring Medley, the generics unit of the French company Sanofi, which begins the second phase of the sale process on Monday, January 5, 2026, according to NeoFeed .

The two pharmaceutical companies made the highest financial offers for Medley in the first phase of the sale process, which involved eight companies : Aché, Althaia, Cimed, EMS, Eurofarma, Hypera, Torrent, and União Química.

On Friday, December 19th, all participants were on a teleconference with representatives from Sanofi. Only executives from the parent company's global M&A area were on the video call. According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the two highest bids were around US$450 million.

EMS, a company owned by the Sanchez family, reportedly made a bid slightly higher than that offered by Aché. When contacted, the company only confirmed "interest in the asset."

As NeoFeed exclusively revealed in October, six companies were expected to advance to the second stage, but the number will be lower.

From the initial list, in addition to EMS and Aché, which are in the first group, Hypera will also move forward. União Química made a proposal at the limit of the minimum established by Sanofi - something close to US$ 400 million.

The French parent company gave the company an opportunity to increase its valuation and advance to the second phase. However, according to market sources, the company has reached its limit, which will exclude it from the bidding process.

At the end of the deadline, a fund from the asset manager Vinci Compass and the Indian pharmaceutical company Sun Pharma, which owns the generic drug brand Ranbaxy, also submitted their offers for Sanofi.

Although the amounts involved were not considered significant, both proposals are in the running for the bid that begins on January 5th.

Sanofi executives did not officially inform the candidates what each of their proposals was; Cimed, Eurofarma, Torrent, and Althaia were reportedly told that they would not proceed.

“Fewer offers above US$420 million came in. But the offers from EMS and Aché were considered very strong. The French executives held a long conference with them, explaining the process going forward in detail, which shows that Sanofi believes the competition is between the two,” a source told NeoFeed .

People in the pharmaceutical industry say that, in the case of Cimed, even though CEO João Adibe Marques has shown an intention to see it through to the end, he doesn't intend to shift his focus from advancing in the consumer and beauty sector. In fact, the company is expected to announce a merger and acquisition (M&A) of a factory linked to this segment in January.

From now on, executives from the companies whose proposals were approved will meet with executives from Medley, which became independent from Sanofi's Brazilian unit last year. There is no participation from company executives in Brazil.

The second phase begins with the due diligence process, in which candidates can hire a specialized firm to access all of Medley's financial and operational data. In practice, this action begins on January 12th.

From there, the expectation is that the name of the company that will actually buy Medley will be revealed by Sanofi by the end of February.

If Aché wins, the company is likely to keep both generic drug brands on the market. In the first nine months of the year, the company achieved revenue of R$ 4.2 billion, a 9.5% increase over the same period of the previous year.

If EMS wins the deal , the expectation is that the initiative will result in greater synergy in the production of medicines, since Medley's factory, located in Campinas (SP), is about 20 kilometers from the company's manufacturing plant in Hortolândia (SP).

With low overlap, the possibility is that the Sanchez family company will continue with both lines, both EMS and Medley, since the generic drug market is very fragmented in Brazil. And the idea, in this case, is for independent management of the brands.

The NC Group, which controls EMS, closes the year with revenue of R$ 10 billion. Of this total, R$ 7 billion comes from the generic drug company, considered the largest in the sector in Brazil.

"It doesn't make sense to remove a brand from the market, since there is plenty of room for growth, regardless of which company wins this selection process," says the source.

Medley ended 2025 with revenue of R$1.3 billion and EBITDA of R$190 million. The company has a production capacity of 300 million units of medication per year. Sanofi acquired Medley in 2019 from the Negrão family for R$1.5 billion.

When contacted, Cimed stated that it "is still evaluating the asset and maintains its interest in the business," without specifying whether it has moved to the next stage. Aché, Cimed, and União Química did not respond. Vinci Compass said it would not comment on the matter.

In a statement to NeoFeed , Sanofi reported that its position remains the same as in early December, when it discussed Medley's independence process from the Brazilian subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical company, but without mentioning the sale process.