With the Tokyo Olympics set to kick off in less than two weeks, Sanofi already is looking ahead to the next summer Games in its hometown of Paris.
The French drugmaker signed up Tuesday as a national sponsor of the Olympic and Paralympic games for 2024, joining three other French companies—telecom giant Orange, energy utility EDF and financial services company Groupe BPCE—already committed to be local sponsors.
The national level of premium sponsors sits below the worldwide sponsors, which for Paris 2024 include Visa, Samsung and Coca-Cola.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but Le Parisien reported costs between 80 million euros and 150 million euros ($94 million to $177 million) for a premium partnership.
While Sanofi didn’t release details about its plans, it pointed to its social and environmental responsibility commitments, saying the sponsorship “affirms its commitment to the values of inclusion, diversity and openness to the world, as well as its environmental ambition,” in a news release.
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Sanofi recently debuted a new nonprofit unit, Sanofi Global Health, to broaden access to medicines for lower income countries and fund local support programs, and at the same time, expanded its environmental goals.
Sandrine Bouttier-Stref, Sanofi’s global head of corporate social responsibility, told Fierce Pharma part of the reason for the formation of the coordinated unit was “people in the world are expecting more” from companies due to the global pandemic.
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CEO Paul Hudson reinforced Sanofi's social goals in the Olympics’ announcement.
“It represents a great opportunity to unite our employees around values shared with the Olympics and Paralympics, such as inclusion and diversity, openness to the world, courage, determination and excellence.”
While Sanofi has a local tie to the Paris 2024 games, other pharma company sponsors of the Olympics includes Eli Lilly’s current collaboration with Team USA athletes. GlaxoSmithKline similarly signed on as an in-country partner for the London 2012 Olympics as its official lab services provider.