French drugmaker Sanofi raised its full-year profit forecast on Thursday along with a set of stronger than expected quarterly earnings driven by its rare disease and diabetes businesses and higher sales in emerging markets.Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher was upbeat on the company's performance in the months ahead, with sales of vaccines seen rising and regulatory filings expected for several new treatments, including a potential blockbuster cholesterol drug.Sanofi has sought in recent years to shake off the impact of patent losses on big-selling drugs, such as blood thinner Plavix, by betting on so-called "growth platforms" that include diabetes, rare diseases and over-the-counter treatments. Like other drugmakers, it also revamped its research and development (R&D) to launch new, harder-to-copy and pricier biologic drugs.It invested 1.4 billion euros ($1.9 billion) so far this year to raise to 22 percent its stake in U.S. biotech Regeneron , its partner on several promising experimental drugs.
Sanofi, formerly Sanofi-Aventis is a global and diversified healthcare company. Shares of SNY traded higher by 1.52% or $0.78/share to $52.18. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $46.95 and as high as $54.64. On average, 946188 shares of SNY exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 2371333.
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