Producer
Seqens (Novacyl Division) — formerly Rhodia Pharma
French specialty pharmaceuticals company (HQ Ecully, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes; private equity owned — EURAZEO); Seqens' Novacyl division in Roussillon, Isère, France is Europe's primary aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) API producer and one of the few remaining non-Chinese aspirin API manufacturers globally. Novacyl was founded in 1928 (formerly Rhodia Pharma Solutions/Rhône-Poulenc); the Roussillon facility has been producing aspirin for nearly a century. Seqens also acquired PCAS (pharmaceutical chemistry specialty) and other French fine chemical companies to build a 'European pharmaceutical sovereignty' API platform — with significant French government encouragement post-COVID. Novacyl's aspirin production represents approximately 8-10% of global aspirin capacity — the primary European alternative to Chinese Shandong Xinhua for aspirin API procurement.
1
Inputs supplied
1
Goods downstream
0
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
1 input Seqens (Novacyl Division) — formerly Rhodia Pharma supplies
Click an input to see every good that depends on it, every country that produces it, and every other company in the supply chain.
Where it shows up
Goods downstream
Essential goods that depend on something Seqens (Novacyl Division) — formerly Rhodia Pharma makes — pick one to see the full supply chain.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map — where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
Aspirin & Salicylate Chemistry (Novacyl)
30%Custom API Synthesis (CDMO)
40%Specialty Ingredients & Intermediates (PCAS heritage)
20%Consumer Health APIs
10%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains — chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Did you know2024
Seqens's Novacyl division in Roussillon is globally known as the primary European aspirin API producer — the non-Chinese alternative for pharma companies seeking supply chain diversification from Shandong Xinhua. What cosmetics and agricultural chemists know (but pharmaceutical supply chain analysts typically do not) is that Novacyl's salicylate chemistry platform simultaneously produces: methyl salicylate (oil of wintergreen flavoring for confectionery, chewing gum, and topical analgesic creams), octyl salicylate and homosalate (UV absorbers in sunscreen formulations), and salicylic acid fungicides (agricultural use for plant pathogen control). The same Roussillon plant chemistry that makes aspirin API for Bayer and generic pharma producers also makes the UV absorber in a French sunscreen bottle and the wintergreen flavor in a US confectionery product. A century-old aspirin plant is simultaneously a cosmetic ingredient supplier and an agricultural chemistry producer.
Novacyl (Seqens) ↗Origin2023
Novacyl's Roussillon, Isère plant traces to Rhône-Poulenc, the French chemical giant that dominated European specialty chemicals for most of the 20th century. The Roussillon chemical complex on the Rhône River south of Lyon was established in the postwar era as part of France's industrial modernization under the Fourth and Fifth Republics. Rhône-Poulenc's pharmaceutical chemicals division (including aspirin API production) was eventually reorganized through multiple ownership changes — Rhône-Poulenc merged into Aventis, which became Sanofi; the fine chemicals/API businesses were separated and eventually formed Seqens through PCAS and Novacyl acquisitions. The Roussillon aspirin plant has operated nearly continuously since 1928 — surviving German occupation, French industrial nationalization, corporate restructuring, and globalization pressure — making it one of the longest-continuously-operating aspirin manufacturing sites in the world.
Seqens ↗