An innovative pharma giant for the risk-averse

Ageing populations, a cast-iron balance sheet and a pipeline of new products make this European pharma giant a buy, says Paul Hill.

Sanofi is the world's second-largest drugs maker, and the top player in emerging markets, which account for nearly a third of its sales. This is all largely down to chief executive Chris Viehbacher, who took the helm four years ago. As well as cutting costs and expanding into the developing world, Viehbacher has diversified into areas like vaccines, animal health, consumer products and rare diseases. The company has also bought US biotech expert Genzyme for $20.1bn.

Most importantly, the group is now almost beyond its patent cliff'. Roughly €7.5bn of revenues have been lost to generic rivals since 2009. The last major patent expiry was blood-thinner Plavix, which was opened up to competition last month. This looks set to pull earnings down by 12%-15% this year.

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Paul gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to qualify as a chartered management accountant. He has extensive corporate finance and investment experience and is a member of the Securities Institute.

Over the past 16 years Paul has held top-level financial management and M&A roles for blue-chip companies such as O2, GKN and Unilever. He is now director of his own capital investment and consultancy firm, PMH Capital Limited.

Paul is an expert at analysing companies in new, fast-growing markets, and is an extremely shrewd stock-picker.