Aventis accepts sweetened Sanofi bid
Deal to create one of the world's largest drug firms
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 5:16 p.m. ET April 25, 2004
PARIS - The board of Franco-German drug maker Aventis SA accepted a new takeover offer from Sanofi-Synthelabo SA on Sunday, French authorities said.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin hailed the deal, saying that it corresponds with France’s “strategic interests” because it keeps jobs and decision-making of the drug companies in France.
....France’s health minister had earlier given the government’s clearest ever backing for an Aventis-Sanofi tie-up, defying critics who have accused the state of market interference.
“It is important to have a big European group ... the French state wishes a merger between Sanofi and Aventis,” Douste-Blazy, who became health minister last month in a cabinet reshuffle, told France’s Europe 1 radio.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4830334/
Deal to create one of the world's largest drug firms
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 5:16 p.m. ET April 25, 2004
PARIS - The board of Franco-German drug maker Aventis SA accepted a new takeover offer from Sanofi-Synthelabo SA on Sunday, French authorities said.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin hailed the deal, saying that it corresponds with France’s “strategic interests” because it keeps jobs and decision-making of the drug companies in France.
....France’s health minister had earlier given the government’s clearest ever backing for an Aventis-Sanofi tie-up, defying critics who have accused the state of market interference.
“It is important to have a big European group ... the French state wishes a merger between Sanofi and Aventis,” Douste-Blazy, who became health minister last month in a cabinet reshuffle, told France’s Europe 1 radio.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4830334/
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