PARIS (Reuters) - Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) raised its 2021 profit forecast on Thursday after its vaccines and star eczema treatment Dupixent helped it beat second-quarter results expectations.
The French drugmaker said it was now targeting earnings per share growth of around 12% at constant exchange rates this year, up from "high single digit" percentage growth previously.
Sanofi, which shocked investors last year with a delay to a COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), reiterated its confidence in the shot, which it hopes will secure regulatory approval by the end of the year.
Europe's drug regulator said last week it had started a real-time review of the vaccine.
Sales of Dupixent, which is sold to patients with eczema but also prescribed for other conditions such as asthma, jumped 57% to 1.24 billion euros ($1.47 billion).
Revenue at the vaccines unit was up 16.2% to 1 billion euros, helped by stronger demand for booster and meningitis shots.
Overall, Sanofi's sales rose 12.4% in the second quarter to 8.74 billion euros, while business net income - a figure the company uses as its core metric to measure profits - was up 16.8% to 1.73 million euros.
Analysts polled by Refinitiv had on average been expecting sales of 8.5 billion euros and net income of 1 billion euros.
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