Sanofi Reports
Yesterday Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE:SNY) announced a restructuring plan which did not include much in the way of any changes to their diabetes unit. Today when the company released earnings it was clear why this unit was largely left in-tact as the unit continues to perform well in what is quickly become a more difficult insulin market. With their once-daily GLP-1 now submitted for approval in the EU, we’ll soon get a glimpse into how the company will compete is another highly competitive market. Given how well the diabetes unit is performing it was somewhat surprising that there was no mention of the entry into the glucose monitoring market or any update on when we’ll the IBGStar which continues to await FDA approval.
Looking towards the future Diabetic Investor was surprised to learn that the new Lantus formulation currently in Phase 1 will move directly to Phase 3 as the company noted that discussions with the FDA would allow them to accelerate the clinical process. Although they would not go into detail as to what exactly was discussed with the FDA or why they feel they can skip Phase 2, the company was confident they can go directly to Phase 3. Based on previous statements made by the company Diabetic Investor sees this new formulation following the trend towards less frequent dosing of insulin.
Other than the many questions on the new Lantus formulation and approval pathway, today’s call was largely absent of any significant diabetes news. Diabetic Investor isn’t reading too much into the silence on diabetes devices as the company does not want to fall into the trap of giving a launch date for the iBGStar even though we can see no reason why the FDA would not approve the product.
All in all for their diabetes unit not much of anything has really changed and we suspect future calls will contain greater information as to how they are executing here. We certainly hope so as this is one of the more boring Sanofi calls in some time.
