As Sanofi counts down the days before its new leader arrives, the French pharma\u2019s chief financial officer acknowledged there had been a \u201ccertain number of setbacks\u201d under Paul Hudson\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n
Hudson was pushed out of the company in February, weeks after admitting that 2025 had been a \u201cbumpy ride\u201d for the company. That ride included the anti-OX40L-ligand antibody amlitelimab\u00a0flunking<\/a>\u00a0a phase 2 asthma trial, the oral TNF inhibitor balinatunfib missing the goal of a\u00a0midstage psoriasis study<\/a>\u00a0and the Regeneron-partnered IL-33 candidate itepekimab\u00a0failing one of a pair<\/a>\u00a0of phase 3 studies in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked by Fierce on this morning\u2019s first-quarter 2026 earnings call whether Hudson\u2019s tenure had ultimately been a failure in terms of R&D, CFO Fran\u00e7ois Roger responded that he \u201cwould not phrase it the way you did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnder his leadership, I think we saw a very significant transformation of the company,\u201d Roger continued. He pointed to an increase in revenues under Hudson\u2019s leadership from around 36 billion euros in 2019 to 46 billion euros<\/a> last year, as well as successful efforts to make the company\u2019s industrial footprint more efficient.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring Paul’s tenure, as well, we developed Dupixent, which will be a more than 22 billion euro drug in 2030,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n When it came to R&D, Roger said, \u201cyou need to look at that in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is true that last year we had a certain number of setbacks, clearly, but that happened in the industry,\u201d he told Fierce. \u201cSo you need to look at that over time. We all know R&D inherently involves both successes and setbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n The CFO also pointed to recent R&D achievements, such as the success of its oral, brain-penetrant glucosylceramide synthase inhibitor venglustat in a phase 3 study of<\/a> type 3 Gaucher disease, as well as the TSLP and IL-13 inhibitor lunsekimig acing a pair of phase 2 respiratory studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, neither of those announcements was untarnished by failure at the time. The venglustat win was disclosed along with a phase 3 fail in Fabry disease, while the lunsekimig readouts included a phase 2 failure for eczema.<\/p>\n The bumpy R&D ride continued this morning, with Sanofi disclosing that its pentavalent meningococcal vaccine \u201cdid not achieve the predefined immunogenicity threshold in its phase 2 study.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cConsequently, the vaccine candidate will revert to earlier stages of development for reformulation,\u201d the pharma explained in its earnings release.<\/p>\n