Kodak’s Drug Unit Expected to Unveil Deal With French

Eastman Kodak Co.’s Sterling Drug subsidiary probably will announce a joint venture today with a French drug company, an industry analyst said Tuesday.

Kodak officials will meet with industry analysts today in New York City, Kodak spokesman Paul Allen said. Allen said he couldn’t say whether a joint venture between Sterling and Sanofi SA would be announced at the meeting.

Jack Kelly, who follows Kodak for Goldman, Sachs & Co., said the Rochester-based photographic company will probably use the meeting to unveil a deal between Sterling and Sanofi, a unit of the French state-controlled energy company Elf Aquitaine. The two pharmaceutical companies have been holding talks over a possible joint venture for weeks.

“The Sanofi thing is not new news,” Kelly said. “The fact that there was a press release . . . combined with a pretty major meeting suggests to me that a joint venture is likely to be announced.”

Kodak, responding to an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, released a statement saying Sterling and Sanofi were still discussing the possibility of a joint venture.