Sanofi is looking to turbocharge its manufacturing operations and has joined with Formula 1 team McLaren Racing to usher in accelerated production.
The name of the game in this collaboration is efficiency and acceleration. Sanofi will draw on McLaren’s expertise in these areas to improve production line changeovers and anticipate issues — like the racing team does during pit stops.
McLaren is no stranger to speed: in 2012 the company set the world record for the fastest pit stop in F1 history at just 2.31 seconds. It is currently ranked fourth out of the 10 teams set to compete in the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship.
Racing experts will head to Sanofi where they will work together to improve pipeline delivery, manufacturing operations, and company learnings, according to the French pharmaceutical company.
“We want to run our lines with the speed, precision, and efficiency of an F1 racing team,” said Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi.
The two companies originally partnered in 2021 for a test run that proved successful. The current agreement expands on this test run to bring the collaboration to multiple sites across seven countries and to cover more than 100 production lines.
“We look forward to continuing to collaborate with Sanofi to make a positive impact not only in manufacturing but to help Sanofi improve patients' lives,” said Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren.
Neither company has released financial details of the current agreement.
This is not the first time McLaren has joined forces with the pharma industry. In 2011, GSK and McLaren signed an agreement to bring the racing team’s engineering and technical knowledge to improve cost-efficiency and the cut back on breakdown of production lines. The two originally planned to create a site for collaboration called The McLaren GSK Centre for Applied Performance, but there is no evidence it was ever finished.