Sanofi Genzyme Donates Corporate Archives to Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School (HBS) announced this month that Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Sanofi Genzyme, the largest biotechnology company in Massachusetts and an innovator in the global biotechnology industry, will donate materials to the Historical Collections of HBS’s Baker Library to create an extensive archival collection, covering more than 30 years since the company’s founding in 1981.

Genzyme began as a startup in downtown Boston and now has revenues of $4 billion and offices in more than 40 nations. French company Sanofi purchased Genzyme Corporation in 2011, becoming Sanofi Genzyme. Laura Linard, Director of Baker Library’s Historical Collections, observes, “Our archives are an extraordinary resource for understanding the creation and growth of companies that broke new ground in their day, from railroads to the textile and financial services industries. Since its days as a new venture, Genzyme has been an innovative and influential part of the burgeoning biotech space – ‘the industry’s Apple, blazing a pathway for creating treatments for rare diseases,’ as the Boston Globe once described the company. We are delighted and honored to begin archiving this collection of papers and other materials, highlighting Genzyme’s history and its impact on the development of the biotechnology industry, particularly in New England. Beyond that, these materials also help tell the story of Boston and Cambridge as world-class centers of innovation.”

David Meeker, MD, Executive Vice President and Head of Sanofi Genzyme, comments, “The Baker Library provides us with a perfect venue for making Genzyme’s archives accessible to future generations of scholars and students who want to learn about the decisions that led to the success of our company. We are happy to begin donating these materials to our neighbors at Harvard Business School, forever preserving the legacy of Genzyme.”

Materials in the Genzyme Archive, as permitted by the company and determined by the course needs of HBS faculty members, may also be incorporated into the HBS curriculum, become the subjects of HBS cases, and be used as sources for doctoral theses and books. They will also support emerging trends in contemporary and future scholarship and be used to explain parallels between current and past events.

For more information about Harvard Business School, visit their Web site.

Albert & Company International, Inc. is a one-stop shop for Executive Development and talent management. Our vision is to help individuals gain the knowledge they need to excel, thereby increasing their efficiency and productivity, leading to better organizational growth. For more information on this and many other courses in our extensive Executive Education database, the most comprehensive and complete of its kind, visit us on the Web at http://albertconsulting.com, or email us at info@albertconsulting.com.