Sanofi, France’s biggest company by market value, cut its forecast for sales of diabetes therapies in the next three years after sales of its best-selling Lantus insulin slumped.
Diabetes sales will probably drop between 4 percent and 8 percent through 2018 at an average annualized rate and at constant exchange rates, the Paris-based company said in a statement Thursday. Last November, it had forecast sales slight growth at best.
Chief Executive Officer Olivier Brandicourt is banking on new therapies such as Praluent, a powerful new cholesterol treatment that first went on sale in July, and Aubagio and Lemtrada for multiple sclerosis, to help make up for the sales slide in ageing best-sellers like Lantus. That worked last quarter: even as diabetes suffered, new products helped profit beat analysts’ estimates.
Profit excluding some costs and currency movements, which Sanofi calls business net income, rose to 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion), or 1.61 euros a share, from 1.94 billion euros, or 1.47 euros a share, a year earlier, the French drugmaker said. That exceeded the 1.58-euro average of 12 analyst estimates...