PARIS – French healthcare company Sanofi said on Wednesday that it expects its fourth-quarter results, due to be published early next month, to reflect a boost from foreign exchange movements and from flu vaccine sales.
Sanofi conducts much of its business in the United States and since it reports results in terms of the euro currency, it would benefit from the strength of the U.S. dollar against the euro.
Sanofi said its preliminary estimate of currency movements was for a boost of between 4.5%-5.5% on fourth-quarter sales and a positive impact of between 6%-7% on its fourth-quarter core earnings per share.
The company also said that an arbitration award concerning litigation in the United States about the heartburn drug Zantac was now expected to be rendered some time this year, and at the end of the first quarter at the earliest.
The issue centres on Sanofi’s indemnification rights and obligations following its acquisition of the product from Boehringer Ingelheim. Those obligations are being disputed between the parties in the arbitration.
Sanofi “remains confident in its legal defences” regarding the litigation, it said.
Originally marketed by a forerunner of GSK, the medicine has been sold by several companies at different times, including Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Sanofi as well as a plethora of generic drugmakers.
Uncertainty surrounding the litigation had wiped almost $40 billion off the market value of GSK, Sanofi, Pfizer and Haleon over roughly a week in August, with shareholders fearing payouts of billions of dollars, similar to cases involving Merck & Co’s painkiller Vioxx and Bayer’s glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup.
However, in a boost for the defendants, a U.S. ruling in early December dismissed thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming that Zantac caused cancer.
