No news on Sanofi's expected aquisition of Genzyme in this week's earnings call.
The call did show that Sanofi reported only a 0.5% increase in 4th Qtr sales up to $10.1 B and reported a net drop in profits by 64% due to a large restructuring charge that relieved them of thousands of sales people and R&D scientists. Sanofi indicated the sales staff was no longer needed as they were losing business from their Taxotere, Plavix and Lovenox frachises to generics competitors. This trend is strong enough that Sanofi chose to revise its EPS estimates for 2011 down by 5-10%.
The above estimates on EPS does NOT include any possible beneficial effects that a Genzyme acquisition might provide. This speaks volumes as to the need Sanofi has to make a Genzyme-type deal a reality to get back into growth mode in the short-term.
Sanofi CEO Chris Viehbacher said talks with Genzyme are proceeding on its expected timeline. He told reporters and analysts "we'll keep you posted" when there is something to report. See WSJ here and here.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Feb 10th 2011.
More on Sanofi's earning report here from Seeking Alpha - focusing on effects of generics competition
http://seekingalpha.com/article/252178-generics-hit-sanofi-revenues
Posted by: bigredbruce | 02/10/2011 at 04:40 PM