Sanofi has posted impressive growth in profits during the third quarter ended September 2015 and its net profit increased significantly by 36.8 per cent to €1,628 million from €1,190 million in the corresponding period of last year. Its net sales increased by 9.2 per cent to €9,591 million from €8,781 million due to positive effect of exchange rates. With higher profit, EPS moved up to €1.25 from €-.91 in the last period.

Its pharmaceutical sales improved by 2.6 per cent to  €7,267 million mainly due to Genzyme, which were partially offset by lower sales of diabetes. Diabetes sales declined by 6.6 per cent to €1,852 million due to lower sales of Lantus by 10.8 per cent to €1,561 million. In the US, sales of Lantus declined by 19.6 per cent to €997 million due to a slowdown of basal insulin market growth, higher discounts and unfavorable mix effect towards government channels such as Medicaid. The sales of Lantus in Western Europe also declined by 1.4 per cent to €222 million. Sanofi projects global diabetes sales over the period of 2015-18 to decline at an average annualized rate of between 4 per cent to 8 per cent.

Sanofi and Lilly reached a settlement agreement in September and resolved a US patent infringement lawsuit regarding Lilly's pursuit of regulatory approval for a biosimilar of Lantus.

Genzyme sales went up by 32.7 per cent during the quarter ended September 2015 to €923 million. The sales of Established Rx products remained stagnant at €2,846 million. Its sales of vaccines increased by 5.5 per cent to €1,717 million and that of animal health increased by 9.3 per cent to €607 million.

Olivier Brandicourt, CEO, said, “The Group showed growth on both top and bottom line in the third quarter driven by strong performance of Genzyme, Vaccines and emerging markets. At the same time, we continue to make significant investments to strengthen Sanofi for the future. With the growing adoption of new products such as Aubagio, NexGard, Lemtrada and Toujeo and the recent launch of Praluent, we have achieved important milestones in our mission to bring innovative medicines to patients. Despite headwinds in our diabetes business, we are confident in Sanofi's long-term prospects and we look forward to sharing our roadmap for the group on November 6, 2015.”

For the nine months ended September 2015, Sanofi's net sales increased by 12.5 per cent to €27,779 million from €24,698 million in the similar half of last year. Its net profit went up by 28.4 per cent to €4,035 million from €3,134 million. R&D expenditure moved up by 10.7 per cent to €3,844 million from €3,473 million. EPS for the nine months period worked out to €3.03 as against €2.32 in the last period. Lantus sales declined by 7.3 per cent to €4,854 million. Similarly, sales of Plavix declined by 0.4 per cent to €1,474 million. Its vaccines sales improved by 4 per cent to €3,301 million Its US sales increased by 1.8 per cent to €10,114 million and that in emerging market went up by 8.7 per cent to €8912 million.

The company reaffirms that it expects 2015 business EPS to be stable to slightly growing versus 2014 at constant average exchange rates, barring unforeseen major adverse events.