Sanofi-Aventis publishes second-quarter figures

Sanofi-Aventis has published its financial statements for the second quarter of the 2007 fiscal year, reporting “solid” results in a difficult environment for the first half of the year.

In the second quarter, the company saw a 2.3 per cent increase in net sales on a comparable basis, reaching 6,939 million euros (4,682 million pounds), with net sales of the company’s pharmaceutical business rising 1.2 per cent to 6,320 million euros.

Net sales of the top 15 pharmaceutical products in rose by 2.4 per cent during the second quarter to 4,294 million euros and by 6.4 per cent to 8,777 million euros for the first half of the year.

“Excluding the impact of the arrival of generics of Ambien IR in the United States and Eloxatin in Europe, the top 15 products would have achieved growth of 10.7 per cent in the second quarter and 11.3 per cent in the first half,” the company noted.

The company recorded a 14.8 per cent growth in the net sales of its vaccines segment during the second quarter of 2007, when compared to the same quarter last year.

In May 2007, Sanofi-Aventis called for the introduction of an effective anti-counterfeiting policy at the first European parliamentary symposium on the issue.