Sanofi Aventis, Dagenham, Essex
2 July 2010
A chemical landmark was awarded to the Sanofi-Aventis (formerly May & Baker), Dagenham site to mark over 75 years of pioneering and manufacturing work in a wide range of chemical and pharmaceutical fields since 1934.
The plaque was unveiled by the Worshipful Mayor, Councillor Nirmal Singh Gill, in front of an invited audience of employees, past and present and other guests. Receiving the award from President-Elect, Professor David Phillips, Sanofi-Aventis HR Industrial Director Jim Moretta, paid tribute to the hard work of staff at Dagenham over many generations for the success that the company had achieved.
The 108 acre Rainham Road site was bought by May & Baker then based in Wandsworth, for £11,000 in 1919 but was not opened for business until 1934. It was to become the headquarters of the multinational, May & Baker Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rhône-Poulenc S.A., and in its heyday the site employed some 4,000 people.
The Dagenham site was diverse in terms of chemical manufacture with active pharmaceutical ingredients, pharmaceutical products, veterinary medicines, aromatic chemicals, agrochemicals, photographic chemicals, plastics, industrial and fine chemicals being manufactured there over the last 75 years.
In addition to chemical and pharmaceutical manufacture, Dagenham had a strong R&D base and some significant molecules were synthesised here, the most notable being the bacteriostatic sulphonamides, with M&B 693, Sulphapyridine, synthesised in 1937 and M&B 760, Sulphathiazole, a year later. Both were very active against cocci infections and were the forerunner of the antibiotics. During WW2, it was noted that M&B 693 had saved many thousands of lives. Indeed Sir Winston Churchill extolled the virtues of M&B 693 having been treated with it for pneumonia infections twice during the war.
Research on sulphonamides stopped after these two products but continued with other therapeutic agents and agrochemicals. Dagenham was instrumental in developing the diamidine group of bacteriostats, including Pentamidine, Propamidine and Dibromopropamidine, the beta-blocker Acebutolol hydrochloride, the HBN herbicides, Ioxynil and Bromoxynil, the phenoxybutyric acid herbicides and the carbamate herbicide, Asulam, the veterinary compounds, Dimetridazole, Sulphaquinoxaline and Isometamidium chloride and many improvements in the field of photographic chemicals, developers and fixers.
The site has won the Queens Award for Industry three times for technological innovation and in 1974 was granted a royal warrant as suppliers of agricultural herbicides to HM Queen Elizabeth II.
In line with many other chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers consolidating their operations, R&D and chemical manufacture finally ceased at Dagenham in 2000 and the site now only manufactures sterile oncology products and a couple of high volume sterile injections.
From its May & Baker beginnings, Dagenham has had several name changes over the years, as the Company expanded and merged and the site became consecutively Rhône-Poulenc Ltd., Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, Aventis and latterly Sanofi-Aventis. Despite all the changes, the site is still very much "May and Bakers" to the local community.
