Sanofi

Lemtrada, Sanofi's "new" drug for multiple sclerosis, helps demonstrate just how plagued the drug-development process can be, with a series of false starts and sudden stops as it was handed off from one company to the next. Today, Reuters ' Ben Hirschler chronicled the 25-year R&D odyssey, which is expected to be capped soon with a European approval followed soon after by an FDA decision.

With competition fierce in the diabetes category, Sanofi is pushing its franchise in multiple directions, issuing new devices, new drugs and new markets to secure its position.

As a major medical meeting brings the spotlight to new diabetes drugs this month, Sanofi has begun reaching out to the media to secure center-stage status for data on its new therapies. The French drug giant has a next-generation version of its best-selling insulin drug Lantus as well as a combo therapy that have implications for its future in the market.

Sanofi is gearing up for commercial production at an insulin plant in Russia which it bought in 2010 from a Polish company.

Now that we know that a single immunotherapy can slow cancer, it stands to reason that two can do better. And that's what investigators say happened when they combined Sanofi's white blood cell booster GM-CSF with Bristol-Myers Squibb's Yervoy.

A universal flu vaccine is the holy grail of influenza immunizations. The yearly process of making educated guesses about the upcoming flu season would end, replaced by a vaccine for many of the strains. It is a massive challenge, but one that Sanofi and others have taken up.