Sanofi shares rally on new margin goals, narrower drug focus

By Sarah White and Matthias Blamont

PARIS (Reuters) - Shares in Sanofi <SASY.PA> rose on Tuesday after the French drugmaker said it would focus on vaccines and treatments like its promising eczema medicine Dupixent to grow sales, in a business revamp seen as potentially leading to spin-offs.

Like rivals from Britain's GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L> to Switzerland's Novartis <NOVN.S>, the company, which also announced cost savings targets and a goal to boost margins, is trying to zoom in on potential blockbuster drugs.

Sanofi is gathering investors in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss ways to improve performance. A research and development day is to take place in June next year.

"We have to have a more competitive mind. We have extraordinary people but there is a lot of bureaucracy we need to get rid off and we have not done enough prioritisation," new Chief Executive Paul Hudson, poached from Novartis in September, said in opening remarks.

Minutes before starting his address, Sanofi said it would simplify its antibody collaboration for two key drugs by restructuring a royalty-based agreement with its U.S partner Regeneron.

Long a leader in the diabetes market with its prescription medication Lantus, Sanofi has struggled in recent years to keep pace in this field with new treatments, and revenues faltered as patents expired.

It now wants to reverse this course, ending research in diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Sanofi is investing in its more buoyant businesses like rare diseases and making a further push in the cancer market, snapping up U.S. biotechnology firm Synthorx <THOR.O> in a cash deal worth about $2.5 billion.

At 1420 GMT, Sanofi shares were up 5.1% at 86.05 euros. Year-to-date, the stock is up about 18%, compared with a 25% rise for the European healthcare sector. <.SXDP>.

Sanofi highlighted the potential for some new launches like Dupixent, an eczema treatment approved in other therapeutic areas such as asthma, which it said could reach over 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in sales from under 1 billion euros in 2018.

"We are encouraged that Sanofi is prioritizing Dupixent," analysts at Credit Suisse said in a note.

Sanofi also announced a target to reach a core operating margin of 30% by 2022, up from 25.8% last year, and ahead of some analysts' targets, including those at Jefferies.

The group said it would carve out its consumer health business, home to over-the-counter products such as influenza treatment Tamiflu, as a standalone unit with its own operational dynamic, on top of three other main divisions.

Hudson did not comment on what this meant for the unit further out, although Sanofi has been considering a joint venture or an outright sale among options for the consumer health business, sources have previously said.

"The market is likely to take (that) as confirmation that the business will leave the group at some point in the future," analysts at JPMorgan said.

(Reporting by Sarah White, Matthias Blamont; Editing by Mark Potter)