Jacques Servier

On 31 December 2008 Jacques Servier received France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honour’s grand cross. Nicolas Sarkozy, president at the time, described Servier as “an entrepreneur the likes of which few are to be found in France.” In the 1950s Servier, a publicity shy billionaire, founded a pharmaceutical company that grew to become the second largest in France and among the top 30 in the world.

Less than a year after receiving the honour, Servier and his company, Laboratoires Servier, would become embroiled in one of France’s biggest medical scandals. The consequences would hang over Servier until his death, which was announced in a short statement by his company.

“The Servier Research Group and all its collaborators have learnt with great sadness [of] the death of their president-founder, Dr Jacques Servier, who died at home today in his ninety-third year,” the statement said. 1 “The spirit, the motivation and the mission of this exceptional personality, whose whole life revolved around the research of innovative medicines, will continue to exist in the priorities given to scientific research and human values in the enterprise he created exactly 60 …