French mid-cap Servier has launched a new visual identity and logo and announced an ambitious 2030 growth plan with an increased focus on hard-to-treat cancers.
Servier, which is governed by a foundation, brought in EUR 4.7 billion in the 2020/21 period according to the firm’s latest annual report, and stood as the world’s 39th largest pharma company last year.
Oncological Endeavours
CEO Olivier Laureau has been leading a transformational shift since 2015 with the aim of improving company performance and increasing the sustainability of its operating model. This has included expanding out from the company’s traditionally strong therapeutic areas of cardiometabolism, venous diseases, and neurogenerative diseases into oncology. Servier is the world’s third largest pharma company in the cardiology and hypertension area.
The company has chosen to make this move into oncology – at least initially – via inorganic means, acquiring Shire’s oncology portfolio in 2018 (for USD 2.4 billion) and Agios Pharmaceuticals’ oncology division in 2021 (for USD 1.8 billion). Smaller deals, such as that for antibody-focused Danish outfit Symphogen, have also been sealed in the past few years. Servier and Laureau are hoping that this oncology outlay will help them establish a presence in new strategic territories such as the United States and Japan. Internally, Servier now dedicates over half of its R&D budget to oncology.
Much of this R&D will be focused around a new facility, the Servier Research and Development Institute at Paris-Saclay, which will open its doors in 2023. Based on a EUR 370 million investment, Servier is hoping to transform its R&D output via this Institute, which is located at the centre of a global scientific and technological innovation cluster.
However, it has not all been rosy for Servier in the past few years. In March 2021, a French court ruled that the company was guilty of aggravated deception, involuntary homicide, and involuntary injury in marketing the weight-loss drug Mediator. Servier was fined EUR 2.7 million (USD 3.2 million), former Deputy Chairman Jean-Philippe Seta was given a suspended prison sentence of four years, and France’s drug regulator, Agence nationale de securite du medicament (ANSM) was fined 303,000 for failing to act promptly on Mediator’s safety risks.
A New Identity
In a move away from its 1980s-esque former branding, Servier recently unveiled a new ‘visual identity’, along with a 2030 growth plan. In a press release, the company says that “The “moved by you” signature and the star symbolize the Group’s proximity to its stakeholders (patients, partners and employees). The smile, represented by the curve of the “R”, provides hope for patients. It symbolizes the passion, empathy, expertise and innovation that characterize Servier.”
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On growth, Laureau expects revenues of EUR six billion by 2025, EUR one billion of which should come from oncology, and a turnover of more than EUR eight billion with EUR three billion coming from oncology by 2030. This strategy is based around three pillars:
- Being a mid-size, focused and innovative player in oncology as well as in neuroscience and immuno-inflammation
- Accelerating the Group’s leadership in cardiometabolism and venous disease
