The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi received eight offers from companies interested in buying its generic drug unit Medley . The value ranged between US$420 million and US$450 million.
The companies interested are Aché, Althaia, Cimed , EMS , Eurofarma, Hypera , Torrent, and União Química, as exclusively revealed by NeoFeed at the end of October.
Now, six candidates will advance to the second phase to determine the new owner in a new round of negotiations. The names that will remain in the competition will be announced by Sanofi by Friday, December 19th.
NeoFeed has learned that the documents outlining the purchase plans were sent via email at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, December 10th, to representatives of the investment bank Lazard, which is advising Sanofi on the sale of Medley.
In the document, companies had to state the price they intend to pay for Medley and the financial equation necessary to confirm the offer. In this first phase, the cutoff point for inclusion on the shortlist will be financial.
According to industry sources, Sanofi's assessment is that there is no reason for any other selection criteria at this time, as all competitors are considered potential "good buyers."
"The market is qualified. Even the smaller companies managed to secure guarantees from banks to proceed with the deal ," says a source familiar with the transaction.
Before receiving the official documents, Sanofi executives had already spoken with the interested parties to understand if they were actually willing to proceed with the business and if they had the financial viability to do so. And they received positive responses from all of them.
Cimed, for example, confirmed in its proposal that its main partner is the Singapore sovereign wealth fund (GIC), which in March of this year bought a minority stake in João Adibe Marques' company. Speaking to NeoFeed , the CEO revealed that he would "go all the way" to buy Medley.
In the case of Althaia, founded by Jairo Yamamoto, who was CEO of Medley for 19 years, the company confirmed that it obtained financial backing to support the potential acquisition – the market is speculating about the participation of a fund, which would enter as a partner.
Among the interested parties, EMS is one of the few that has no debt. Therefore, the trend is that it will use approximately 75% of its own resources in the business and seek the remaining 25% from banks.
Even those facing the most financial difficulties, with debt on their balance sheets, managed to show Sanofi ways to support the operation. In this case, the proposals should be more "down-to-earth" and less aggressive from a competitive standpoint.
More contested than expected.
Pharmaceutical industry executives familiar with the matter told NeoFeed that Sanofi has already warned its competitors that the deal is more competitive than initially anticipated. Therefore, the expectation is that the final price will be higher than what was presented in this first stage.
The expectation is that the price, in the final stage, will reach something close to US$ 550 million, still a value that represents almost half of the US$ 1 billion that the French company initially wanted to receive from the sale.
With the announcement of the competitors who will advance to the next phase, Sanofi will also provide more details on the timeline, which will include a due diligence phase. Candidates will be able to hire an external auditor to gather all the information about Sanofi's Brazilian generics unit.
Although the final phase will not be in the form of an open bidding process, the expectation of the companies' executives is that Sanofi will hold a kind of auction, without the candidates knowing the official price of the competitors, but seeking to understand their willingness to raise their bids.
Initially, the plan was to announce the winner in March, but according to NeoFeed , the most likely scenario is that the deal will be finalized in mid-February.
The expectation is that the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) will take almost a year to approve the purchase, which will mean that the new owner will possibly take over Medley in early 2027.
In its clarifications to companies, Sanofi reported that Medley's EBITDA in 2025 should be slightly below R$ 200 million, and revenue close to R$ 1.3 billion. The French company acquired Medley in 2019 from the Negrão family for R$ 1.5 billion.
"Sanofi is very comfortable with the year's figures, which should expedite the end of the negotiation. It will hardly be necessary to make any changes to the information already given to the companies," confirms a source in the sector.
In the background of the dispute over Medley is the multi-billion dollar generic drug market in Brazil. Data from the Brazilian Association of Generic Drug Industries (PróGenéricos) shows that the sector grossed R$ 20.4 billion in 2024.
The trend is to close 2025 with 7% growth and to represent, by next year, 40.7% of the total volume of medicines sold in pharmacies in Brazil. On average, 2.5 billion boxes of generic drugs are sold per year.
In a statement, EMS said it "confirms its interest in the business," without providing further details. Cimed stated that it "is still evaluating the asset and maintains its interest in the business." Althaia did not respond.
Also contacted by NeoFeed , Sanofi stated that it is "advancing its global transformation to become a leading R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company, powered by AI, with a focus on innovative medicines and vaccines."
The company also noted in the statement that it consolidated Medley's independence process in July 2025 with the appointment of Lucia Rossato as CEO.
"The goal of the independence process is to unlock Medley's full potential as a leader in the generics market, with greater autonomy to innovate, grow, and respond quickly to industry demands," the company added, without going into details about the sale process.
