While Sanofi hasn’t been at the forefront of global COVID-19 vaccination efforts, the company still has big growth expectations in the vaccines field. Already the world’s top flu shot player, Sanofi sees mRNA, pneumococcal vaccines and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as three areas of opportunity going forward.
By expanding the reach of its existing offerings, launching new vaccines and advancing pipeline shots, Sanofi expects to more than double its vaccine sales by the end of the decade from a starting point of 2018’s 5.11 billion euros, execs said during a vaccines investor day Wednesday.
Sanofi expects the global flu vaccine market to more than double to 15 billion euros by 2030, with its own shots serving as a “key driver of that market expansion,” Sanofi’s head of vaccines, Thomas Triomphe, said during the event.
Further, the company aims to launch its RSV candidate nirsevimab in 2023, and its 21-valent pneumococcal vaccine candidate is in phase 1/2 testing, execs said Wednesday. If successful, the latter program could enter a lucrative market currently dominated by Pfizer's multibillion-dollar Prevnar franchise. As for RSV, that has long been cited as a top target for vaccine developers.
Aside from the RSV and pneumococcal candidates, Sanofi cited next-gen flu programs—plus candidates against chlamydia and acne—as potential future launches. In all, the company expects the diseases its vaccines will address to represent a total market size of 50 billion euros by 2030.
After taking the Sanofi reins in 2019, CEO Paul Hudson placed an emphasis on the company's growth pillars, with vaccines and immunology superstar Dupixent front and center. Wednesday, Hudson said vaccines will be a “resilient and sustainable contributor to our growth and profitability” going forward.
Last year, the company’s vaccine revenues grew 9% at constant exchange rates to nearly 6 billion euros thanks in part to “record demand” for Sanofi’s flu shots. At Wednesday’s event, the company reiterated its goal of mid- to high-single-digit annual revenue growth for the franchise through 2025.
While Sanofi has long been a top vaccine player globally, during the COVID-19 response, the company’s GlaxoSmithKline-partnered shot encountered delays that led the partners to cede the lucrative market to mRNA players Pfizer and Moderna. Those companies are now in the process of generating tens of billions of dollars with their successful mRNA shots, while the established vaccine giants Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline work to finish late-stage testing of their vaccine candidate.
RELATED: Sanofi snaps up Origimm for early-phase acne vaccine, opening new front in mRNA strategy
As part of the vaccine investor day, Sanofi said it had bought Origimm for access to the company’s early-stage acne vaccine. Earlier this year, the company picked up its mRNA partner Translate Bio in a $3.2 billion deal.