Sanofi saw its profits and sales fall in Q2 in the wake of several high-profile exclusivity losses.
Profits fell 26.2% to $893 million in Q2 2018. Prescription drug sales were ar $7.3 billion, down 3.8% from the previous year, and revenues declined by 5.7% to $9.6 billion.
CEO Olivier Brandicourt said that the figures were largely due to the impact from the losses of US exclusivity, but that “the growth of our diversified businesses largely compensated for these headwinds”.
Notably, sales of Lantus insulin, whose US patent expired in 2015, were down 25.5% to $1 billion, while the diabetes and cardiovascular unit as a whole saw revenues drop to $1.8 billion, a fall of 14.9%. Sales in the vaccines division were down 20.2% to $951 million, which the company said was partly due to the expected Pentaxim supply constraint in China.
However sales of Lantus’ successor Toujeo rose by 1.4% to $254 million, sales of eczema drug Dupixent were up 576.9% to $206 million, and Genzyme’s division sales rose 21.1% to $2.5 billion.
“We look forward to entering a new growth phase led by our increasing focus on specialty care and our leadership positions in emerging markets and vaccines,” Bradicourt added.
