LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline and Haleon regained some ground on the stock market on Friday after falling two days earlier as the three pharmaceutical companies said the U.S. Zantac lawsuits would not had registered no major developments.
The stock market value of Sanofi fell 11% in two days, that of GSK by 15% and that of Haleon by 12.6%, the market fearing that the lawsuits involving Zantac, a treatment for heartburn stomach withdrawn from the market from 2019 after the appearance of a potential risk linked to a potentially carcinogenic impurity, resulted in very costly compensation for the three groups.
More than 2,000 complaints involving Zantac have been filed in the United States according to analysts and the first trial is due to open at the end of the month.
In a press release https://www.sanofi.com/fr/media-room/communiques-de-presse/2022/2022-08-11-16-21-24-2497005 published Thursday, Sanofi specified that the first trial in which he would be directly implicated was scheduled for February 2023.
Zantac, originally launched by GSK, has been marketed by several companies since its proprietary patent expired in the late 1990s, including Sanofi, Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Haleon, listed on the stock market since last month, combines consumer healthcare assets previously held by GSK and Pfizer.
GSK, Sanofi, Pfizer and Haleon have lost a total of nearly 38 billion euros in market capitalization over the past week despite the absence of any new concrete element in the case, Barclays analysts noted on Friday.
Those of JPMorgan believe on their side that if GSK is the most exposed to the Zantac file, the fall in the title is probably exaggerated.
Concerning Sanofi, they consider it possible that the group will not be held liable for any damage and that, in the contrary case, its financial exposure in the file would be lower than that of GSK. They conclude that the current price is “an interesting entry point for a horizon of one year or more”.
Sanofi shares gained 0.89% at 11:15 a.m. while London, GSK took up 3.91% and Haleon 1.58%.
(Report Natalie Grover, French version Marc Angrand, said by Kate Entringer)