France's Servier eyes €500 mn global sales from India drug tie-ups

The mid-sized pharmaceutical company said it aims to marry Indian expertise in chemical formulations and ‘incremental innovation’ with its discovery prowess to speed up drug development and manufacturing for its global markets.

While Servier, the second largest French drugmaker, has been manufacturing locally in partnership with contract manufacturers for the Indian market, the company announced a €15 million investment to set up a platform called Gatinn to develop single-pill combinations for cardiometabolic and venous diseases in partnership with select contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs), the company’s global leadership said at the launch of the platform on Tuesday. The first product is expected to be shipped out by October 2027, and the drugmaker projects global sales of €500 million by 2030.

Servier plans to export single-pill combinations or medicines that combine two or more active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)into a single pill to countries in regions such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa, where the burden of cardiometabolic diseases is high.

“In the context of single-pill combinations or incremental innovations, there are two dimensions. There is the molecule itself, and then how you put molecules together. And here it is interesting to follow the success of India in terms of not so much the molecule, but the ability of India to find innovative solutions to put molecules together in a way that perhaps is better than other parts of the world," Bradley Lloyd, managing director, APAC at Servier, told Mint in an interview.

“We see India having a real technological advantage in its ability to find innovative ways to put molecules together or to evolve formulations in order to achieve either single pill combinations or new ways to deliver the active substance," Lloyd said.

Servier's platform is expected to have around five products in development by the end of 2026, with approximately one new combination added each year till 2030. While the development and manufacturing will happen locally, the APIs will be imported from Servier’s production facilities.

“India was a market for Servier, now India is becoming a hub for Servier," said Aurelien Breton, managing director, Servier India.

The idea behind developing single-pill combinations for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases is that adherence to multiple pills is a huge problem, said Breton. These are also chronic conditions with a growing incidence rate globally. “It's more about the mass market or the largest population pools of the world with chronic conditions, so it makes sense to build on the SPCs," he said.

Servier is France’s second-largest pharma company after Sanofi, and ranks 35 in the global pecking order. In the 2024-25 financial year, it posted revenues of €6.9 billion.

Cost was a major factor in Servier's decision to choose India for the Gatinn project. There were multiple elements they were considering, including quality and speed, but “cost was certainly an element where India was more favourable," as opposed to Europe, said Lloyd.

The firm, which has a strong presence in cardiology and venous diseases, has been expanding its oncology portfolio in India. It is also considering running oncology clinical trials in India, the executives said.

“I think this reflects the fact that India is maturing as a market, but it's also maturing as a pharmacology or pharmaceutical ecosystem," said Lloyd.