A new financial director to reassure the markets.
Following the publication of its 2023 annual results, Sanofi announced the replacement of Jean-Baptiste Chasseloup de Chatillon, its financial director for five years, by François-Xavier Roger, who previously held the same position at Nestlé.
The group explains that Jean-Baptiste Chasseloup de Chatillon “
chose to leave Sanofi to take the helm of Apprentis d’Auteuil
”.
This change is no less a signal to investors, who are struggling to be convinced that the transformation of Sanofi into a pure player in innovative medicines will ultimately prove successful.
The stock price of the French pharmaceutical laboratory fell by almost 20% last October, after a downward revision of its profitability objective by 2025. This decline, assures Paul Hudson, the managing director of Sanofi is the price to pay to focus on innovation and once again become “
a world leader in pharmacy, not just a local player competing with the best
”, as he explained to Le
Figaro
in December.
Drop in profitability
The results presented this Thursday confirm Sanofi's decline in financial terms.
The French pharmaceutical giant saw its profitability slow down in 2023. The earnings per share of its activities increased by 5.4% in 2023, compared to 17% in 2022. Its turnover increased by 5.3%, to 43 million euros.
The group is today very dependent on its blockbuster drug, Dupixent, initially intended to treat atopic dermatitis, but whose indications continue to expand.
In 2023, sales of this drug will exceed the 10 billion euro mark, as anticipated by Sanofi.
But the pharmaceutical laboratory shares the profits with the American Regeneron, and the patents it has for this drug will begin to fall from 2031.
To investors gathered in Boston in December, Paul Hudson promised the launch of 12 potential blockbusters in the coming years, mainly in immunology, likely to take over from Dupixent, and generate 2 to 5 billion euros in turnover.
To do this, the group plans to increase its spending on research and development.
Savings in purchasing will contribute to this, as will the group's refocusing on innovative medicines, a riskier but also more profitable activity.
Its active ingredient manufacturing business, EuroAPI, was listed on the stock exchange in May 2022, and Sanofi announced last October its intention to separate from its Consumer Health division, along the lines of what many of its competitors (Johnson & Johnson, GSK, Novartis and now Teva).