Sanofi, the third largest pharma company in the world, has received setback during the third quarter ended September 2013 on account of lower sales of established pharma product, vaccines, slowdown in Chinese pharma market and adverse exchange rates. Its net profit declined by 21.2 per cent to €1,213 million from €1,539 million in the similar period of last year. Its net sales also declined by 6.3 per cent to €8,432 million from €9,040 million. Its earnings per share for the quarter worked out to €0.92 as against €1.17 in the last period. Its R&D expenditure increased to €1,183 million from €1,144 million.

The sales from growth platforms, including diabetes, vaccines, consumer healthcare, Genzyme, animal health, etc improved by 5.5 per cent to €6,298 million. Diabetes sales improved by 20.1 per cent to €1,670 million and that of Genzyme moved up by 21.1 per cent to €529 million. However sales of vaccines declined by 7.2 per cent to €1,300 million. Lantus sales improved by 21.2 per cent to €1,456 million. The sales of established products like Plavix, Lovenox, Aprovel/Avapro, Myslee, Taxotere, Allegra and Eloxatin declined significantly. The sales of Plavix declined by 1.6 per cent to €423 million due to unstable market conditions in China. The sales of Aprovel declined by 25.5 per cent to €210  million due to generic competition. The sales of Eloxatin declined sharply by 58.1 per cent to €50 million during the quarter under review.

Sanofi's sales in US improved by 5.2 per cent to €2,982 million and that in emerging markets by 2.8 per cent to €2,652 million. However, its sales in Western Europe declined by 4.8 per cent to €1,930 million. Similarly, its sales in rest of the world declined by 7 per cent to €868 million which includes lower sales in at Japan of €573 million.
 
Christopher A Viehbacher, CEO, said, “The third quarter marks an inflection point for Sanofi as the impact of the patent cliff ended in August. As a result, we returned to sales growth in September. Our growth platforms grew 5.5% in the third quarter despite the shortage of pertussis-containing vaccines in the U.S. until mid-October, the impact of the market slowdown in China and our recovering generics business in Brazil. Growth platforms now represent 75 per cent of our sales. We continue to make strong progress in R&D with recent approvals for Aubagio and Lemtrada in EU, Nasacort Allergy 24HR for OTC use and NexGard in the US We also released positive results for the first phase III with alirocumab and for a large study with Fluzone High-Dose.”

For the first nine months ended September 2013, Sanofi's net sales declined by 7.3 per cent to €24,494 million from €26,421 million in the corresponding period of last year. Its net profit nosedived sharply by 40.9 per cent to €2,661 million from €4,501 million as its sales declined in US by 4.5 per cent and that in Western Europe by 7.6 per cent to €5,888 million. The sales in emerging market, however, improved marginally by 2.2 per cent to €8,040 million.