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By Ludwig Burger
(Reuters) - French drug maker Sanofi on Friday posted stronger earnings growth than analysts had expected in the third quarter, boosted by an earlier-than-anticipated start of the vaccination season.
Quarterly business operating income, excluding one-off items, rose by 14.4% to 4.6 billion euros ($5.0 billion), surpassing the average analyst estimate of 4 billion euros in a poll posted on the company's website.
Vaccines sales rose a currency-adjusted 25.5% to 3.8 billion euros in the quarter, ahead of a 3.2 billion euro analyst consensus.
Sanofi is nearing a sale of a 50% stake in its consumer unit, valued at 16 billion euros in total, to boost clinical trials for next-generation drugs. CEO Paul Hudson's spending plans were initially met with a massive stock market slump a year ago but the shares have rebounded.
The company, which is one of the world's largest vaccine makers by sales, said its quarterly earnings were boosted by earlier prescriptions for flu shots and for Beyfortus, a new treatment to protect newborns from a common respiratory virus.
Without these early shipments, the company would still have seen a "very attractive" quarterly growth level of close to 11%, finance chief Francois-Xavier Roger said in a media call.
"Overall, given the strong set of results with a 15% beat on Business EPS, largely driven by the topline, we expect Sanofi shares to outperform by c. 3-5% today", J.P. Morgan analysts said in an equity research note.
Quarterly revenues from its best-selling anti-inflammatory shot Dupixent gained a currency-adjusted 23.8% to 3.48 billion euros, slightly ahead of expectations. Yet more growth momentum is on the cards because it was recently cleared to treat a common lung disease.
Sanofi earlier this week announced it was in exclusive talks to sell a controlling stake in its consumer health business Opella to U.S. investor Clayton Dubilier & Rice, part of an industry trend to divest non-prescription drug units.
The French drugmaker said at the time that adjusted 2024 earnings per share at its core business without Opella would grow by at least a low-single digit percentage when adjusted for currency swings, with a strong rebound seen in 2025.
(This story has been refiled to correct the name of the analyst firm in paragraph 7)
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, editing by Tassilo Hummel)
