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(Bloomberg) -- Sanofi said it will repurchase €5 billion ($5.2 billion) of stock and grow profits faster this year as the drugmaker pivots away from consumer health to focus on fast-growing drugs like its RSV shot.
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Earnings per share, excluding some items, are likely to increase by a low double-digit percentage at constant currencies in 2025, compared with 4.1% growth last year, the French company said in a statement Thursday.
The buyback comes after Sanofi agreed late last year to sell a controlling stake in its consumer health business, Opella, to US private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice. The deal is expected to close as soon as next quarter. Sanofi also forecast mid-to-high single-digit percentage sales growth this year.
Sanofi shares rose as much as 1.9% in Paris trading and have gained about 10% this year, outperforming a 4.5% increase in a Bloomberg index of European pharmaceutical companies.
Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson is focused on boosting Sanofi’s drug development, hoping to produce more blockbusters like Beyfortus, which protects against the respiratory syncytial virus. Developed with AstraZeneca Plc, the drug had sales of €841 million in the fourth quarter, higher than the €679 million expected by analysts.
Sanofi expects further growth for Beyfortus this year, though not at the same pace as just after its initial launch, Chief Financial Officer François-Xavier Roger told reporters. The company is expected to soon face competition from Merck & Co., which is also developing a drug to protect babies against RSV.
Sanofi’s asthma drug Dupixent reached €3.5 billion in sales last quarter, slightly below estimates. The company expects demand for the drug to accelerate this year for treating the lung condition known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Sanofi intends to work with the new US administration of Donald Trump and engage in a dialogue on how to get medicines and vaccines to patients, Roger said. Trump’s choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic and critic of Big Pharma, to run the Department of Health and Human Services has raised concern among drugmakers.
Sanofi hasn’t been a frontrunner in the burgeoning field of obesity drugs and doesn’t yet know if it will “play in that space,” Hudson said on a media call. Still, the drugmaker has several obesity assets in very early stage development.