Topic: How To Invest

Hi, Pat. Could I get you to take a look at Sanofi-Aventis? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Sanofi-Aventis, $32.71, symbol SNY on New York (ADRs outstanding: 2.7 billion; Market cap: $86.1 billion), is the world’s fourth-largest drug company, and the largest in continental Europe. In August 2004, Sanofi-Synthelabo bought Aventis and became Sanofi-Aventis. Paris-based Sanofi gets 90% of its sales from pharmaceuticals. Vaccines, which it sells through subsidiary Sanofi-Pasteur, make up the other 10%. Sanofi-Pasteur makes 20 vaccines, and is the leading supplier to the U.S. Europe accounts for about 37% of Sanofi-Aventis’s sales, followed by North America (33%) and rest of the world (30%). Its major drugs include Lovenox (strokes), Plavix (blood clotting), Ambien (insomnia), Taxotere (cancer), Eloxatin (colon cancer), Lantus (insulin), Copaxone (multiple sclerosis), Aprovel (high blood pressure) and Allegra (hay fever). In the three months ended June 30, 2009, the company’s sales rose 11.2%, to 7.4 billion euros from 6.7 billion euros a year earlier (1 euro = $1.54 Canadian). If you disregard favourable foreign-exchange rates, sales would have risen 6.5%. Sanofi-Aventis’s earnings rose 29.4%, to…