Analysts ‘disappointed’ by Sanofi guidance
pharmafile | February 6, 2014 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Aubagio, Plavix, Sanofi, q4, sales
Sanofi has announced a mixed bag for its full year results as analysts have questioned why its forecasts for the coming year are so low.
The French company announced this morning that fourth-quarter sales for it pharmaceuticals business reached €7 billion, an increase of 8.4% at constant exchange rates.
Full year 2013 sales for the pharma business, however, dipped by 0.2% to €27.25 billion. This was due in part to sales lost to generic competition on key legacy products such as anticoagulant Plavix in mature markets, which saw a negative impact of €1.25 billion.
Sanofi said it expects its profit to advance by 4% to 7% at constant currencies, but analysts were predicting an 8% gain and have not been thrilled by the numbers.
“We expected management to set an easy guidance target for 2014, but this it too low,” Jeffrey Holford and colleagues at Jefferies in London wrote in a note to clients. He added: “We are disappointed”.
But Sanofi remains optimistic, pointing out its return to growth in the fourth quarter after dealing with strong headwinds in the past year, and the firm had particular success in emerging markets and diabetes, a core unit for the company.
In Q4 these emerging markets saw sales growth of 10.4% – and for the full year this grew to €10.9 billion, a steady increase of 4.4 per cent.
The firm’s diabetes division also performed strongly with sales climbing 19% to €1.74 billion last quarter. It was up 18.7% for the full year with revenue hitting €6.56 billion.
The Genzyme unit, which sells treatments for multiple sclerosis and rare genetic diseases, had an impressive 31% increase in revenue to €595 million.
This comes as Sanofi introduced its new MS drug Aubagio last year, whilst also taking market share in Europe away from Shire with its Fabry disease treatment Fabrazyme.
But it was not all good news for the unit as regulators in the US knocked back its key MS treatment Lemtrada in January. This drug was instrumental in Sanofi’s $20.1 billion purchase of Genzyme in 2011, and it will need an FDA approval if it is to continue performing for the firm.
A small silver lining has appeared however, as just yesterday the drug received marketing approval in Mexico.
Sanofi’s chief executive Christopher Viehbacher, said: “Sanofi’s growth profile emerged in Q4 2013 with total sales growing 6.5% and growth platforms, which represented 72.9% of sales, increasing 10 per cent.
“Furthermore, new product launches are underway or imminent in most of Sanofi’s core businesses and several high potential R&D projects progressed in 2013, including alirocumab [for hypercholesterolemia], sarilumab [for arthritis] and U300 [for diabetes].”
Ben Adams
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