So What If It's Bankrupt?

France's Sanofi wins Robins with a $3 billion bid

Even in the era of corporate raiders, when almost any company smaller than General Motors is fair game, A.H. Robins seemed to be an unlikely target. The Richmond pharmaceutical firm has been bogged down in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings since 1985, and faces billions of dollars in claims from women who say they were injured by Robins' Dalkon Shield, a small plastic intrauterine birth-control device. Yet in the past few weeks suitors lined up as if Robins had discovered a cure for cancer. Two U.S. drug companies (Manhattan-based American Home Products and the Rorer Group of suburban Philadelphia) and one foreign...

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