Sanofi makes bold promises with Q2 results
pharmafile | July 30, 2009 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Sanofi-Aventis, patents
Sanofi-Aventis has promised its 2013 sales will at least match those the company made last year, despite facing huge and looming patent expiries on its top drugs over the next five years.
It made the pledge as it announced buoyant second quarter figures, and laid out plans for targeted annual 2 billion euros (£1.7bn) cost savings by 2013 to help offset the expiries.
Commenting on the results, chief executive Chris Viehbacher said: "The group delivered very strong results in the second quarter, driven by solid growth of key pharmaceutical brands and vaccines, strong sales in emerging markets and recent acquisitions."
He sent a positive signal to investors, saying the strong progression of its earnings has led to the company raising its earnings per share guidance for 2009 to around 10%.
He added: "Those achievements constitute another step toward our vision of becoming a leading diversified global healthcare company, with a sustainable growth profile by 2013."
The French company is aiming to at least match its 2008 level of net sales in 2013 before significant acquisitions – a sum of 27.6 billion euros (£23 billion).
For the first half of 2009, it has posted net sales of 14.5 billion euros (£12.4bn), an increase of 6.7% on last year.
But 20% of the company's sales are at risk from generics in the period from 2009-2013, a major concern for the company and for Viehbacher, who only took the helm last December.
Since then Viehbacher has overseen a series of smaller acquisitions, including Zentiva, Medley and Kendrick. Last week, the company added to its vaccines business with Shantha Biotecnics in India.
Recently Sanofi has also agreed to buy the Swiss generics company Helvepharm, and is also to take over Merial, the animal-health company it owns jointly with Merck. Sanofi will pay $4bn for Merck's share of the company they founded together in 1997.
This year it has also launched a new R&D approach to increase innovation, consolidating its operations and streamlining its projects to improve pipeline prospects.
But investors and analysts have voiced concerns about the lack of pipeline products, but Viehbacher says growth drivers over this period will be in vaccines, diabetes, emerging markets, over-the-counter products, the Japanese market and new launches.
Sanofi said these, and the two billion euros cost savings, would more than offset the impact on net sales of future patent expiries, and deliver more sustainable growth with a reduced risk profile from 2013 onward.
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