Read the Conversation
Meeting Highlights:
- Strengthening LATAM Presence: Sanofi expands its footprint in Latin America, leveraging a diverse market to drive innovation, access, and sustainable healthcare growth.
- Expanding Access & Clinical Trials: With 156 ongoing studies, Sanofi’s investment in LATAM's clinical research landscape to accelerate life-saving solutions and address unmet healthcare needs.
- AI-Driven Digital Transformation: Sanofi harnesses large-scale AI and digital strategies to enhance R&D, optimize operations, and advance personalized medicine.
- 95 Years of Impact & Social Commitment: Sanofi's longstanding LATAM presence supports manufacturing, public-private partnerships, vaccine distribution, and impactful social initiatives.
- Future-Forward Strategy: Sanofi integrates digitalization, access, and talent development to ensure a resilient, innovation-driven future.
EF: What mission have you set for yourself in this new position? And what role does Latin America play in Sanofi's global strategy toward innovative medicine?
EM: This new role is an incredible chance to bring my 20 years of experience in specialty care and launching innovative products in the US to a fresh and dynamic market across 31 countries in Latin America, with Mexico as the region's core. What excites me about this region is its rich diversity in culture, traditions, political systems, healthcare challenges, and, more importantly, opportunities. There's great potential in working as one unified region, which we've recently implemented at Sanofi, uniting Spanish-speaking Latin America (excluding Brazil).
Latin America’s diversity is a chance to innovate and tailor solutions that address unique healthcare challenges. Our mission is clear: to become a global leader in immunology and improve the health of populations across Mexico and Latin America. By partnering with external stakeholders and optimizing our operations, we can better serve patients and make a real impact.
Sanofi has moved away from operating each country independently and unified under one Latin American structure. This shift is about transforming the market, strengthening our footprint, and creating new opportunities to bring innovative treatments to the region.
We are one of seven international regions within Sanofi and the largest—not just in geography, countries, and cultures but also in our impact on patients and contribution to Sanofi's net sales. Latin America plays a critical role in our global strategy. We have affiliates in 11 countries, with our operations and sourcing spanning 31 countries. Our team includes over 2,000 employees and three industrial sites, contributing to pharma and vaccines and the region's economic and employment landscape.
Our newly established Sanofi Bogota hub is a strategic center that supports our multi-country operations. With nearly 600 professionals, it optimizes resources and ensures consistent quality across 35 countries, including Canada, the US, and Latin America. We aim to make Latin America a key market on par with the US, Canada, and Europe.
Central to our mission is building a sustainable model that guarantees patients have access to the latest, most advanced treatments. To make this happen, we're focusing on more efficient product launches, strengthening our digital efforts to reach patients, and accelerating access to treatments across Latin America. A great example is our 156 ongoing clinical trials in the region, with a strong presence in Argentina and Mexico. These trials provide transformative treatments for high-need diseases and benefit participating countries economically. In Mexico alone, around $300 million Mexican Pesos are invested in clinical trials. With one of the strongest pipelines in the industry, especially in immunology and other critical areas, advancing our clinical trials will remain a top priority as we continue to support patients and drive our mission forward.
According to the FIFARMA weight report on innovation, Latin America tends to lag behind the rest of the world. Sanofi is focused on finding practical and innovative ways to accelerate progress through various channels. This includes collaborating with regulatory bodies like COFEPRIS, offering digitalization tools to streamline dossier reviews, and providing real-world evidence and data to ease the entry of new treatments. Across the industry, we need to work closely with governments and health authorities to ensure innovation can flow smoothly into the region.
EF: How do you see the future of digital health, especially its adoption in the Latin American region?
EM: Sanofi's mission is to become the first company to scale AI across all aspects of its work in serving patients globally. While terms like AI and digitalization are often buzzwords, Sanofi's strategy, particularly in Latin America, genuinely focuses on optimizing how we accelerate patient treatments. Starting at the clinical trial phase, Sanofi is leveraging AI to match patients to clinical trials more quickly by analyzing patient characteristics. AI plays a key role in shaping better clinical trials, making it easier to pinpoint the right patient groups and boosting the overall success of these trials, transforming how we discover and develop medicines.
To accelerate our business, we have launched an internal initiative called PLAI. It gives us real-time access to critical data, whether tracking the cost of goods for our hundreds of products in Latin America or monitoring the progress of R&D trials across different phases. Having this information at our fingertips allows us to make agile, informed decisions every day, which is key to how we operate.
On top of that, we are looking at how AI can improve the patient experience, whether through tools like chatbots or by enabling earlier diagnosis, particularly for rare diseases in communities that often lack access to proper care. Another critical area is supply chain optimization. Efficiently getting medicines to patients in Latin America can be a challenge. AI helps us predict demand, manage inventory, and reduce issues like stockouts or temperature control problems during transport. These are game changers for ensuring patients get the treatments they need.
Globally, we are fully committed to this journey. We are partnering with external experts like Formation Bio and OpenAI. Collaborating with these leaders helps us accelerate the integration of AI into our daily work – a must for any pharma organization today. In Latin America, we have been behind in digital innovation and face unique challenges that other regions might not. But my team is focused on breaking down those barriers. For example, we are exploring partnerships with retail pharmacies to streamline how we deliver medicines to patients digitally. I am proud of our progress, as it is all about pushing forward for the benefit of patients.
EF: Could you give examples of how you build public-private partnerships across the region?
EM: Sanofi has been a part of Mexico and Latin America for 95 years. We have always focused on collaborating with the government, the Ministry of Health, and key stakeholders to make a real impact. While political landscapes change frequently in Latin America, Sanofi aims to remain a reliable and apolitical ally in healthcare. We meet with civil societies to discuss how we can adapt to the country's needs and contribute to patient well-being at every stage. To make a real impact, collaboration with all these players is essential.
Our approach isn't just about pharmaceuticals. It spans our entire portfolio, including immunization, vaccines, and innovative medicines.
We are especially proud of our public-private partnership with Azteca. Sanofi leads vaccine production in Mexico, with our Ocoyoacac plant supplying over 40 million doses of the quadrivalent flu vaccine and millions more of the hexavalent vaccine annually. This partnership strengthens preventative healthcare and ensures more people get the necessary immunizations.
In Mexico, we have invested 3.5 billion pesos in infrastructure over the past five years, including our vaccine production facility and a strategic distribution center for timely treatment access. We also collaborate with the government and healthcare sector on clinical studies to advance medicines and address unmet needs. Across Latin America, we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in high-impact research to bring patients the latest treatments. But our commitment goes beyond medicine—programs like "We Volunteer" support vulnerable groups, reinforcing our mission to make a lasting social impact.
EF: Looking back on the past year, what achievement are you most proud of? And, looking ahead, what impact do you hope to make in Latin America through Sanofi over the next five years?
EM: I'm most proud of how we're building a strong foundation for sustainable access to innovative medicines in Latin America. This region presents significant challenges, requiring quick short-term decisions, but we've also established a solid five-year strategic plan to guide us.
Sanofi Mexico relies heavily on our general medicine legacy portfolio, particularly in diabetes and cardiovascular care. While these essential medicines remain crucial, they do not fully address the market’s unmet needs. The key challenge and opportunity lie in introducing more innovative medicines while considering healthcare’s GDP contribution, balancing preventive and innovative treatments, and meeting the needs of 129 million people.
A smart approach to pricing and demonstrating value to the Ministry of Health is essential. In our respiratory portfolio, we have RSV immunization for children, and products for asthma and soon, COPD—both major health concerns in Mexico. The goal is to create win-win partnerships that align Sanofi’s business with delivering value to millions of patients.
Talent is another key focus. Everything we do is for the patient, and that mission depends on the right people. Latin American talent strategy emphasizes retention, digitalization, and AI-driven transformation. Women compose 65% of our regional team, including senior leadership, and our early talent pipeline is strong. We are attracting diverse talent externally, balancing internal growth with fresh perspectives to meet our ambitious goals.
When I started, I built a new leadership team, bringing in bold Latin American voices to help shift from traditional medicines to innovative solutions. Our goal is to ensure our medicines are as forward-thinking as the talent driving our vision.
