The country's leading manufacturer and exporter of medicine Beximco Pharmaceuticals has acquired a 54.6% stake in Sanofi Bangladesh. The acquisition is the biggest in Bangladesh's pharmaceutical industry's history. A brief ceremony took place Thursday at a city hotel to mark the occasion. Beximco Pharma Managing Director Nazmul Hassan MP, BCIC Chairman Shah Md Imdadul Haque, SM Alam, additional secretary at the Ministry of Industries, and senior officials from both companies attended the event. Nazmul Hassan said, "The completion of this deal is a major milestone for us. We have a clear strategy to continue our diversification and expansion, strengthening our position as a market-leading pharma company in Bangladesh. Read: 100 million Beximco PPE Park launched in Savar "We look forward to welcoming over 800 skilled and diligent Sanofi Bangladesh employees to our existing workforce. As an enlarged group, we are excited to continue our growth trajectory by delivering affordable treatments and breakthrough therapies in our growing domestic market," he added. Sanofi Bangladesh, part of global biopharmaceutical company Sanofi SA, started operating in the country in 1958 as part of British chemical company May & Baker. Following a series of mergers, it became known as Sanofi-Aventis in 2004, before being renamed Sanofi Bangladesh in 2013. Sanofi's manufacturing facility is located near Beximco in Tongi and the company is producing around 100 branded generic products – mainly for the local market. It has a strong presence in cardiology, diabetes, oncology, and dermatology. The company also supplies its global brands of vaccines, insulins and chemotherapy drugs to Bangladesh through direct imports.

Bangladesh will not pay more than US$4 for each dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine it is buying from the Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd, said Nazmul Hassan Papon, the Managing Director of Beximco Pharma.

The Health Ministry on Thursday received one thousand doses of a generic version of Remdesivir - the intravenous drug that has been shown in one trial to reduce the time needed for recovery from Covid-19 - from Beximco Pharmaceuticals, for treatment of serious Covid-19 patient.