The Sanofi Aventis Group, or as it is also known, the Sanofi Group, is a well-known pharmaceutical company located in the United Kingdom. It also has subsidiaries, such as the Sanofi-Synthelabo Ltd and Aventis Pharma Ltd.

Actually, the above company is headquartered in France, with one of it mulitinational companies being located in the United Kingdom, among many other locations as well.

Sanofi-Synthelabo was formed in 1999 when it merged with Synthelabo, hence becoming Sanofi-Synthelabo which was a former subsidiary of L’Oreal. Actually, the Sanofi company itself dates back to 1973. Aventis was formed also in the same year when the french company Rhone-Poulenc merged with the German company Hoechst Marion Roussel Uclaf as well as Marion Merrill Dow.

Sanofi-Aventis was formed in 2004 when Sanofi-Synthelabo bought Aventis. Early that year Synthelabo make a hostile takeover of Aventis worth 47.8 billion pounds, which Aventis initially rejected because they thought the bid that the company made as being weak based on its share value. Thus began a takeover battle that lasted for three month until Aventis was able to come to negotiable terms by offering a more business-friendly bid by offering 54.5 billion in the place of the previous-metioned bid.

In October 2010, Sanofi-Aventis laid off 1,700 US workers due to company restructuring caused by such concerns as growing generic competitions as well as other factors that contributed to the above condition. The layoffs was an estimated 25% of its workforce, some suspected that the reason for the layoffs was due to Sanofi-Aventis’ acquistion of another pharmaceutical company, namely the US biotech firm Genzyme Corp.

In May 2011, the company dropped its -Aventis suffix following receiving approval at its AGM, or Annual General Meeting. The reason they gave for this was so its company name would be more easier to pronounce to such countries as China, for example.