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* Shares rise more than 5%
* French drugmaker announces new targets at investor day
(Adds Sanofi announcement regarding Regeneron partnership)
By Sarah White and Matthias Blamont
PARIS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Shares in Sanofi rose on
Tuesday after the French drugmaker said it would focus on
vaccines and treatments like its promising eczema medicine
Dupixent to grow sales, in a business revamp seen as potentially
leading to spin-offs.
Like rivals from Britain's GlaxoSmithKline to
Switzerland's Novartis, the company, which also
announced cost savings targets and a goal to boost margins, is
trying to zoom in on potential blockbuster drugs.
Sanofi is gathering investors in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
to discuss ways to improve performance. A research and
development day is to take place in June next year.
"We have to have a more competitive mind. We have
extraordinary people but there is a lot of bureaucracy we need
to get rid off and we have not done enough prioritisation," new
Chief Executive Paul Hudson, poached from Novartis in September,
said in opening remarks.
Minutes before starting his address, Sanofi said it would
simplify its antibody collaboration for two key drugs by
restructuring a royalty-based agreement with its U.S partner
Regeneron.
Long a leader in the diabetes market with its prescription
medication Lantus, Sanofi has struggled in recent years to keep
pace in this field with new treatments, and revenues faltered as
patents expired.
It now wants to reverse this course, ending research in
diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Sanofi is investing in its more buoyant businesses like rare
diseases and making a further push in the cancer market,
snapping up U.S. biotechnology firm Synthorx in a cash
deal worth about $2.5 billion.
At 1420 GMT, Sanofi shares were up 5.1% at 86.05 euros.
Year-to-date, the stock is up about 18%, compared with a 25%
rise for the European healthcare sector..
Sanofi highlighted the potential for some new launches like
Dupixent, an eczema treatment approved in other therapeutic
areas such as asthma, which it said could reach over 10 billion
euros ($11 billion) in sales from under 1 billion euros in 2018.
"We are encouraged that Sanofi is prioritizing Dupixent,"
analysts at Credit Suisse said in a note.
Sanofi also announced a target to reach a core operating
margin of 30% by 2022, up from 25.8% last year, and ahead of
some analysts' targets, including those at Jefferies.
The group said it would carve out its consumer health
business, home to over-the-counter products such as influenza
treatment Tamiflu, as a standalone unit with its own operational
dynamic, on top of three other main divisions.
Hudson did not comment on what this meant for the unit
further out, although Sanofi has been considering a joint
venture or an outright sale among options for the consumer
health business, sources have previously said.
"The market is likely to take (that) as confirmation that
the business will leave the group at some point in the future,"
analysts at JPMorgan said.
($1 = 0.9073 euros)
(Reporting by Sarah White, Matthias Blamont; Editing by Mark
Potter)
