Sanofi’s vaccine sales dipped 2.5% in 2025, with almost all immunization products declining. Nevertheless, CEO Paul Hudson doubled down on his support for vaccine development.
Despite a continued slide in vaccine sales—driven by growing skepticism in the U.S. market—Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson continues to believe that immunization remains one of the most important tools available to safeguard the public’s health.
Vaccines, “after clean water is the number one gift to public health,” Hudson told reporters during a media call on Thursday morning to present the company’s full-year 2025 earnings. “It doesn’t change just because of the debates that are happening.”
These “debates,” as Hudson called them, hit the French pharma in the balance sheet, with 2025 vaccine revenue coming to €2 billion ($2.44 billion)—a 2.5% dip year-on-year. Almost all of Sanofi’s immunization products saw a slowdown in sales last year. The respiratory syncytial virus antibody Beyfortus, for instance, dropped 14.9%, while the company’s polio, pertussis and hemophilus influenza franchise slumped 9.5%.
Only Sanofi’s flu and COVID-19 portfolio saw a sales bump, jumping 31.5% year-on-year—an uptick that was driven by “more circulating virus and a higher vaccination rate than anticipated,” the pharma said in its Thursday news release.
The conversation around vaccines has become increasingly fraught in the U.S. after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. enacted a slew of policy changes—matched by controversial public statements—that have made access to shots more difficult. In May 2025, for instance, Kennedy removed COVID-19 from the routine vaccination guidelines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women. A month earlier, he publicly questioned the safety and efficacy of measles vaccines, even as an outbreak of the disease was gripping Texas.
Hudson previously signaled that a decline in vaccine sales was expected again for the fourth quarter, when speaking to reporters at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference earlier in January. He also expressed confidence at that time that vaccines would return to prominance and said the decline provides a good opportunity to buy up companies in the space. Sanofi did just that in December, acquiring Dynavax for $2.2 billion.
Hudson doubled down on his vaccine policy thoughts on Thursday. The U.S. government wants “to put us in a position where parents have a choice,” he said. “There’s not in principle anything wrong with that, but sometimes we need to make sure that everybody fully understands that choice.” To this end, Hudson understands that Sanofi has to “defend with evidence the positive impact of vaccines.”
“We will always do that, irrespective of who is in office,” he added.
In 2025, Sanofi’s net sales surged 9.9% at constant currencies, hitting nearly €43.63 billion ($52.3 billion). Anti-inflammatory superstar Dupixent remained the pharma’s biggest money-maker, bringing in over €15.7 billion ($18.8 billion)—representing 25% growth.
Other standout products include the hemophilia A therapy Altuviiio, which surged 77.6% to€1.16 billion ($1.4 billion) in sales. The mastocytosis drug Ayvakit, which Sanofi got from its $9.5 billion takeover of Blueprint Medicines in June last year, earned $305 million.
Buoyed by its strong 2025 performance, Sanofi expects to see high-single-digit percentage growth in 2026, with earnings-per-share projected to increase “slightly faster” than sales, which the pharma said indicates “profitable growth.”
