Synthelabo 1st Half Pretax Jumps 15.1%

French drugmaker Synthelabo reports first-half 1994 sales up 9.9% to 3.98 billion French francs ($773.1 million) and pretax profits of 501.3 million francs, a rise of 15.1%. For the full year, the company is forecasting sales up 12% to around 8 billion francs, and says net profits, excluding capital gains and losses, expressed as a percentage of sales, is expected to be higher than in 1993.

Pharmaceutical sales rose 10.4% to 3.65 billion francs, due in large part to a strong performance in markets outside France and despite a 6.8% fall in domestic prescription medicine sales, which represented 32.5% of total group sales. Strategic product sales, which accounted for 55.3% of Rx drug sales, were up 26.3%, with a particularly strong contribution from the hypnotic Stilnox (zolpidem) in the USA and Europe, the progress of the alpha blocker Xatral (alfuzosin) in a number of European countries, and the consolidation of the antipsychotic Tiapridal (tiapride) sales in Japan.