Paris (AFP)
The French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, manufacturer of Doliprane, posted a turnover of nearly 9 billion euros in the first quarter, an increase of 6.9% due in half to the pandemic of Covid-19, a it announced Friday.
"The creation of stocks in the distribution channels linked to the Covid-19 pandemic represents approximately half of the increase in turnover in the first quarter," he said in a press release.
Sales of drugs from its "general public" division thus increased by 4.2% to 1.3 billion euros, supported by a favorable effect of the pandemic on the demand for pain or cough products. Sales of Doliprane notably increased by more than 20%.
At the same time, certain treatments for chronic diseases benefited from purchases of stocks by patients.
Sanofi stresses, however, that its turnover was also boosted by its specialty medicine entity, whose sales rose by more than 31% to 2.7 billion euros.
Dupixent, which he developed with his American partner Regeneron and is used in particular in the treatment of asthma and atopic dermatitis, thus posted more than doubled sales.
The laboratory's net profit climbed 48% in the first quarter to 1.7 billion euros, partly due to lower expenses.
Sanofi had proposed in February a dividend of 3.15 euros per share, up for the 26th consecutive year. If he did not mention it in his press release on Friday, the group said at the start of the week on BFMTV that a dividend higher than that of 2018 would be well paid, against the flow of many companies that have been reduced , or canceled their dividend for 2019 due to the pandemic.
The laboratory also recalls having initiated various collaborations to develop vaccines against Covid-19, while two studies have started in order to evaluate hydroxychloroquine - which it markets under the name of Plaquenil - in the treatment of patients with the new coronavirus.
© 2020 AFP