Sanofi Raises Guidance as New CEO Looks to Revamp Drug Pipeline

By Adria Calatayud

Sanofi raised its full-year guidance, citing a strong first-half performance, as its new chief executive officer said she is working on a plan to revamp the French drugmaker's pipeline.

The company said Thursday that it now expects 2026 sales to grow by around 10% excluding currency changes, with business earnings per share--one of its preferred profit metrics--rising slightly faster than sales.

Sanofi had previously anticipated sales to grow by a high single-digit percentage and business EPS ahead of that, when adjusted for currency movements.

The guidance increase come less than two months after Belen Garijo became Sanofi's CEO and was tasked with preparing the company for the future, with the patent expiration of its top moneymaker Dupixent--an anti-inflammatory drug jointly developed with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals--looming on the horizon.

Since Garijo took the helm, Sanofi has reshuffled its executive team and named a new research-and-development head, decided to drop regulatory submissions for an eczema drug it acquired through a $1 billion-plus deal in 2021 and halted development work on two other medicines.

"My first months as CEO have focused on assessing the challenges facing Sanofi and working on an accelerated transformation roadmap that leverages our commercial strengths and focuses on the need for [research-and-development] and pipeline improvements," Garijo said.

Sanofi now expects Dupixent sales to reach nearly 25 billion euros ($28.67 billion) in 2030, with around 10 billion euros in sales from medicines it recently launched, both at constant currency rates. Garijo said this would support the company's work to improve its pipeline and look for outside growth opportunities.

For the second quarter, strong growth in sales of Dupixent and recently launched drugs helped Sanofi post a 18% jump in sales at constant currency. Net sales came to 11.6 billion euros, against analysts' expectations of 10.85 billion euros, according to consensus estimates provided by Vara.

Excluding exceptional items, business operating profit climbed 36% at constant currency to 3.29 billion euros. Analysts had expected the metric at 2.97 billion euros.

The company reported a net profit of 343 million euros compared with 3.94 billion euros for the same period last year, when its results were boosted by a 2.7 billion-euro gain from discontinued operations.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 30, 2026 01:44 ET (05:44 GMT)