Dive Brief:
- Valeant also announced its CFO, a key player in the company's aggressive acquisition strategy, would step down.
- Both Valeant and Sanofi reported strong Q1 results in spite of currency challenges, competitive pressures on key business units and costs associated with acquisition integration.
- For Q1 2015, Sanofi grossed $9.85 billion, with EPS of $1.48, and Valeant grossed $2.19 billion with an EPS of $2.36.
Dive Insight:
The quarterly numbers look good, but for Valeant, the announcement came with other news: CFO Howard Schiller will step down once a successor is found. Schiller helped plan Valeant's aggressive acquisition strategy -- but the company failed in a key part of that strategy, its takeover bid last fall for Allergan. Valeant ultimately walked away from the deal after a protracted fight and Allergan was acquired by Actavis. Schiller plans to remain on the company's board.
For Sanofi, Q1 was all about performance in spite of challenging factors, including a 3.2% decline in diabetes drug sales. Lantus alone had a 5% decline in sales for Q1 2015, compared with Q1 2014. On the upside for Sanofi, the multiple sclerosis drug Aubagio had an 88.5% rate of growth to $170 million for the quarter. Consumer healthcare was also up.
Valeant fared well overall with increased revenues, earnings and year-end expectations. With the $11.1 billion acquisition of Salix complete, Valeant is looking for $1 billion in sales from this investment.