Latham & Watkins Advises Cheplapharm on Strategic Partnership With Sanofi

Latham & Watkins LLP has advised Cheplapharm, a European leader in well-established medicines, on a strategic partnership with Sanofi under which Cheplapharm would acquire a portfolio of 20 mature medicines and three manufacturing sites worldwide. In exchange, Sanofi would receive a 26.4% equity stake in Cheplapharm, building on a collaboration between the companies that began in 2014.

The commercial transfer of the medicine portfolio is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027, followed by the transfer of the manufacturing sites, subject to employee information and consultation procedures, regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to be fully completed in the third quarter of 2027. Upon completion of the acquisition, Cheplapharm, according to its own assessment, would become the fifth largest German pharma company.

The Latham team was led by Hamburg Healthcare & Life Sciences partner Christoph Engeler and Frankfurt Capital Markets partner David Rath, with Frankfurt partner Deniz Tschammler, and associates Antanas Grimalauskas, Florian Brüggemann, Alexandra Heberle, and Annegret Lamadé.  Advice was also provided on corporate matters by Hamburg partner Dirk Kocher, with counsel Steffen Augschill, and associates Ludwig Richter and Alexander Pfeifer; on IP matters by Frankfurt partner Susan Kempe-Müller, with associates Johannes Huschka and Karolin Borcherding; on capital markets matters by Munich partner Rüdiger Malaun and Frankfurt partners Alexander Lentz and Jan Penselin, with counsel Camilla Kehler-Weiss, and associates Peter Neuböck, Tobias Müller, and Jennifer Thiessen; on antitrust and foreign investment matters by Düsseldorf partner Tilman Kuhn and Hamburg partner Jana Dammann de Chapto, with associates Nicolas Riemann, Janine Flohr, David Marder, and Linus Witzenhausen; on regulatory matters by Frankfurt partner Joachim Grittmann; on banking and private credit matters by Frankfurt partner Alexandra Hagelüken, with counsel Cora Grannemann, and associate André Traute; on tax matters by Hamburg partner Tobias Klass, with associate Johannes Lieb; on employment matters by Munich partner Tobias Leder, with associate Martina Hölzer; on restructuring matters by Frankfurt partner Daniel Splittgerber; and on data law matters by counsel Wolf-Tassilo Böhm, with associate Timo Hager. Further advice was provided by the Latham offices in Paris, Singapore, Brussels, and London.