First-quarter flop for Sanofi

Generic competition has hit Sanofi’s financial performance but the company expects a return to growth. Sanofi’s earnings for the first quarter have fallen short of expectations and suffered a drop by a third on last year’s figures.

Markus MacGill

&nbsp,

pharmaphorum

&nbsp,

Sanofi’s earnings for the first quarter have fallen short of expectations and suffered a drop by a third on last year’s figures.

&nbsp,

Sanofi’s profit for the first three months of this year plunged by 33 per cent to 1.61 billion euros out of sales of 8.06 billion, dropping from the first-quarter profit of 2.42 billion euros last year. This is against expectations that the pharma giant’s net income for this quarter would have been 1.75 billion euros out of sales of 8.3 billion.

“As expected, the loss of exclusivity of Plavix, Avapro and Eloxatin in the course of 2012 in the US had a negative impact on Q1 results. However, our growth platforms continue to deliver strong results with diabetes, vaccines, and Genzyme all achieving double-digit growth.”

Christopher Viehbacher, chief executive, Sanofi.

While the current results were brought about by a ‘patent cliff’ at the company, Sanofi now expects to return to growth, forecasting continued good performance from diabetes drugs, vaccines and rare disease treatments.

&nbsp,