R&D organization

Research to fight back disease

Sanofi-aventis brings to its research creativity and innovation, with just one end in view: patient health. With 17,700 staff working in research and development to design and develop new, effective and well-tolerated medicines, the Group now has one of the richest and most innovative portfolios of compounds in the whole of the pharmaceutical industry.

Human health at the heart of the therapeutic areas

Cardiovascular disease, central nervous system, thrombosis, oncology, metabolic disorders, internal medicine and vaccines… These therapeutic areas are major public health challenges because they are the leading causes of mortality worldwide. It is for this reason that sanofi-aventis has concentrated its research efforts on these subjects for which the Group has developed world-renowned expertise.

Project based R&D organization

Discovery Research and International Development departments each have their own specific organizational approach but both work towards the same goal: discovering and developing new compounds with the potential to become the groundbreaking drugs of the future and meet major public health needs.

Discovery research is responsible for identifying the most promising research targets for therapeutic innovation and capitalizing on its biological and chemical skills to discover and propose new candidate compounds for development.
Every year Discovery Research puts forward 15 to 20 compounds potentially capable of providing solutions to unmet treatment needs or of improving existing treatments (i.e.; enhanced efficacy, pharmaceutical forms offering greater patient comfort…).

International development takes the compounds proposed by Discovery Research and turns them into medications. As soon as a compound enters development, a dedicated project team is formed, with members drawn from a variety of functions including researchers, clinicians, pharmacists, toxicologists and representatives from regulatory affairs and marketing. The team's task is to develop the compound all the way to marketing.
The matrix organization adopted by sanofi-aventis ensures effective monitoring and coordination of every aspect of development activity throughout the process and contributes to the success of each product.