Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I hereby declare open the AGM of this company. It is for me to chair this session. Because of the pandemic and with a duty protecting our shareholders, our employees and suppliers, this is taking place in close quarters that is without the physical presence of shareholders in keeping with Ordinance twenty twenty three-twenty one of twenty five March twenty twenty modified by Ordinance twenty twenty fourteen-eighty seven to December 2020 and extended by Decree No. Twenty twenty one to September 2021.
I should like to thank all shareholders who voted remotely ahead of this AGM, and I would like to thank all those of you monitoring these discussions. The recording will still be available on the website. Next to me, at a reasonable distance, we have Paul Hudson, our CEO Jean Baptiste de Chatillon, our CFO and Philippe Perre, our Secretary General. We also have with us Patrick Cron, who who chairs the compensation committee, Director and Sandrine Butier Strep, who's in charge of CSR. It is now for us to constitute the bureau.
I suggest that Philippe Per should be the secretary. And in keeping with Article eight of the decree of 10/2020, I asked L'Oreal and Amundi Asset Management represented by Stephane Taipier to act as scrutineers, and they've, both accepted. The auditors, will be attending, the AGM through a video streaming. Mister Rafael Perrou, a judicial officer, will attend this meeting. The AGM is being filmed and broadcast live on the website.
And as I said, the recording will be available on the website. I will now give the floor to Mr. Pierre. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Because it is impossible for shareholders to attend in presence under the restrictions applied as part of the COVID-nineteen situation, shareholders were asked to vote remotely ahead of this AGM either by a post or using the form or online.
We'd like to thank them. The shareholders with proxies we've taken into account. Based on the attendance sheet that we have, shareholders, either present or represented, represented more than one fifth of shares with voting rights. They accounted for 831,681,000 and some shares, I. E, 66.58% of shares with voting rights.
With such final quorum, the AGM is in a position to We take have here the articles of association, a copy of the notice of meeting that was sent to shareholders, individual shareholders. We also have the receipts of the letters sent by the statutory auditors. We have a copy of Boutin des denos legal, which is the daily execs with the notice of meeting. We also have a copy of Journal d'Annos legal and Boutin d'Anoce Legal of 12/2021 with the notice convening the meeting, the reports of the statutory auditors and all the documents provided by law made available to shareholders at headquarters and sent to those who asked for a copy. And the agenda is on Page eight of the notice of meeting.
Detailed explanations on the resolutions are to be found in the report of the Board of Directors, which is available on our website and on Pages nine and following of the notice of meeting. No draft resolution or indeed no additional item on the agenda was suggested by our shareholders. And you must have received either through BNP Paribas or your own financial contact, all the documents for this AGM.
Thank
you, Philippe. Well, dear shareholders, well, unfortunately, the second year running, I hope this is the last time, here we are meeting online and not in presence. Compared with last year, we will have an opportunity to exchange this year and take your questions. 2020 was an intense year for Sanofi, first of all, because, well, like all companies, we and our people had to somehow manage through
the
pandemic, and this is specific to us. We were able to and we had to keep our plants and labs going in spite of very challenging circumstances. And so the performance, which we will detail in moment, are all the more remarkable for it. But let me address the one issue which was most commented and caused so much criticism, the delay in developing recombinant protein vaccine against COVID-nineteen. Let me just remind you that this vaccine is more difficult to develop because it's based on a biological technology.
It was not supposed to arrive on market until July 2021. The lack of efficacy found on our first Phase II trial was a cruel disappointment for ourselves, of course, but of course, for everyone in view of this global pandemic. I will not get into technical details, but you should know that all, the lessons, were learned both in terms of accountability, but also in terms of organization. By mid May, we will receive the results of our Phase 2b second Phase 2b trial. And if that's positive, that will trigger a Phase three trial in a population of 30,000 patients.
And so the eventual marketing authority will be delivered in October, at least the application would be filed by then. In the meanwhile, because we have no choice, we had agreements with Pfizer BioNTech Janssen, Moderna, and we have agreed to help them manufacture as many as four hundred million doses in Europe and Some throughout the of us some view rather thought this was a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it was a sense of responsibility. And I can say that as you add the efforts to develop the mRNA vaccine, no other company in the world worked so hard to address the pandemic. We've heard all sorts of accusations that we were hopeless, that Sanofi was a reflection of France on the decline about to collapse and that we were surviving from subsidies.
And the combination of lies and accusations have prompted me to address a number of fundamentals. Our researchers are remarkable in what we had to make choices and accept to go for certain therapeutic areas and accept that some of our people should leave us. This was because we could only invest in those areas. We could really make a therapeutic difference in terms of oncology, immunology, orphan diseases, hematology and, of course, vaccines where so much remains to be done. Our research pipeline, which was next to nil about ten years ago, has become a rich pipeline with many innovative products and has found has a newfound credibility, not just in the scientific community, but among investors A as large number of products have come from our own internal research.
So no, we are not surviving on state subsidies. During the crisis, we decided not to resort to any kind of state assistance because we felt this would have been totally out of place in view of our financial solidity anyway. So yes, we do have a research tax credit like any other French company, and that is about €100,000,000 But we invest about 2,000,000,000 in R and D and capital expenditure in France and €5,500,000,000 around the world. So no, our business and our revenue does not depend on the French social security system, except in France because France accounts for 5% of our revenue because, yes, we are a French company. But what non French company would carry 25% of its headcount in France, 40% of the R and D, 40% of global production in France if it were not French.
And one example, we decided in June 2020 to have our first Evolutive plant, vaccine plant in France to the tune of $450,000,000. So yes, we are Europeans because our values are guided by our European roots. And as should be the case in the industry, we favor the long term over the short term and because our mission takes on board a vision So yes, we do have a global ambition. And how could we have acquired this size?
How could we have developed so many assets in France where we're not a global player? And the EUR 12,500,000,000.0 in exports manufactured in France is proof of this. Could we do that? Could we build on to the five first exporters in France where we're not present in more than 100 countries. Now in spite of this setback, and I'm well aware of this, you should know that the company is doing well.
In spite of the pandemic, we've enjoyed growth both in terms of revenue and in EPS on a constant exchange rate basis. The main pillars of our play to win strategy made significant headway, both growth, both in terms of penetration and the expansion of Dupixent with Remarkable Vaccine, accounting for 15% of our revenue, made headway. Our research pipeline developed significantly strengthened by the acquisition of several biotech companies, Binsitia, KIADI, Skynlab to the tune of EUR 4,500,000,000.0. Our company disposed of a significant portion of its stake in Regeneron. This was a profitable sale, generated significant capital gain, and that, of course, strengthened our investment capacity.
And of course, our CHC capacity enabled us to redirect our organization so as to make it more effective, meet specific requirements of that business and enjoy renewed growth. Europaea, which is a new European group, independent group manufacturing active ingredients, is a group where we are one of the main shareholders and that will be IPO ed in the 2022. And finally, our Genmed strategy has decided to turn around that business with a new prioritization of efforts, a new portfolio of and a streamlined portfolio of products with geographic selection. And 2020 was also a year where we decided to work harder on CSR. And we've been working a lot on this, but not all of this was consistent.
Now we had made commitments in terms of the environment, classical commitments for the energy, water and so on. But we also decided to work harder on access to medication. We'll tell you more about this today. But over and beyond this, Sanofi and its Board are well aware of Sanofi's defining role both in scientific and medical terms, not just in France but around the And so, the Board decided to allocate EUR20 million to the foundation of hospitals and EUR80 million in hospitals at large and decided to invest in such funds as InnoBio, Biojato Cafe and developed several chairs of education and recently started an initiative with Orange, Capgemini and Generali to have in Paris a digital health platform. And other projects have been considered.
Over and beyond these numbers, better sales and income, I would like to underline that under the stewardship of Paul Hudson, this group has experienced a deep seated change. And this may not always be visible from the outside, but the sustained efforts towards digitalization not remains to be done, but significant progress has made it possible for all parts of this company to have required more to require more mobility and effectiveness. So we have clear priorities, strategic objectives, high ambitions, more agility, and we are more open on all aspects, more transparent. And that means we can have a trusting relationship with the Board of Directors. And so that is, of course, the starting point.
We have the commitment of the Executive Committee and indeed all the employees. And I would like to thank everyone in the company, and I believe that is not just my views but that of my colleagues on the Board of Directors. And let us, without further ado, take a look at the governance of this company. The Board of Directors in 2020 was made up of 16 members. I believe you had the were introduced last year.
And we had a few changes. First of all, two of our directors will be leaving the board, Laurent Atal and Berlav Charlemais. Laurent Atal is retiring. For nine years, he was a remarkable director. He was he sat on the strategic strategy committee, and he brought his experience in not just in strategic development, but also through his knowledge of The United States, CHC products, but also, well, research because he was Head of Research at L'Oreal.
Stayed Bernard with us four years on the Board, and he brought with him his lively personality, his strategic vision, but also his in-depth knowledge of digital technologies. And that, of course, enabled the company to make tremendous strides in this field. I would like to thank them both for their valuable input out there. Two other departures, employee representatives, Marion Palme and Christian Senecte, whose terms have come to an end. Now to replace these directors, we have with us Barbara Lavarnos, who will be introduced in a minute.
Well, not only do we have the pleasure of Barbara L'Aernos with us, but we'll have two additional representatives of shareholding employees, Wolfgang Glo and Jan Tran. For your approval as well, we have the ratification and indeed the renewal of two terms, Gilles Schnepp. Gilles Schnepp joined us last year. In the meanwhile, he has become Chairman of the Board of Danone, Fabienne Leconvizier, who chairs our Audit Committee and then Melanie Lee, who is also a member of our Scientific Committee. The Board of Directors will then for will now have 15 members instead of 16.
This is largely independent because 10 directors out of of 13 are independent. It is well balanced in terms of gender. It is pretty international because we now have a majority of non French directors on the board. And like any company of that size in France, have two directors representing employees. Now the purpose, of course, of the Board of Directors is to ensure that we support and roll out the strategy that was announced in December 2019, Play to Win.
And it is for me to give you details of the operations of the Board over the next two over the past few months. There are 14 sessions last year, including executive sessions that take place in the absence of the CEO and a strategy committee. We worked, of course, on the play to win strategy, which is a sort of a broad based strategy, but the details were presented as well. We went through all business lines and issues of governance. We had board meetings, obviously, on the pandemic, the measures taken, the monitoring of research in vaccines, the new strategy for CSR.
And the Board, of course, is formally assessed on an annual basis to try and improve the effectiveness and skills of directors. We it was very productive and attendance was about 98 The five Audit Committee also had sustained meetings, six meetings in 2020. Of course, the Audit Committee is there to monitor our accounts, to have exchanges with statutory auditors. It had a specific role this year because it had to address the issue of cybersecurity, the data protection directive. It was, of course, involved in drafting the budget.
And on a regular basis, the audit committee conducts audits in such issues as business ethics. That is also monitored on a half yearly basis. The compensation committee chaired by Patrick Crow had three meetings in 2020. Needless to say, it was for us to analyze the votes of shareholders of the previous AGM in 2020. So we revisited some of the modalities, and Patrick Conte will give you details about that in his presentation right after mine.
We looked at the compensation packages and payment in attribution free shares. And we also worked on employee shareholding, especially there a program in 2020 and there will be a new one in 2021. Appointments and governance committees and CSR committees, well, that committee was very much involved in the succession plans, not just for the CEO and the Chairman of the Board, but also members of the Executive Committee. Well, of course, it's for the committee to have regular reports for our major shareholders. It is in charge of assessing the work of the Board And importance committee and governance committee paid special attention last year on gender parity in the governing bodies
of the
company. The strategy committee met six times in 2020. And of course, the purpose of that committee is to act as an interface with top management on strategic options and also to pursue strategic thinking as far as possible. And so there's a regular review of the play to win strategy and see its ability to address current challenges, but also it considers possible acquisition targets or partnerships. And in that capacity, a number of projects, including Puton, which became Euro API and the digital strategy were examined.
And then the Scientific Committee, chaired by Thomas Sundhof, met three times five times, sorry, in 2020. This is a rather recent development at Sanofi. And the purpose of that committee is to address in some detail, and of course, at the board meetings themselves, we cannot get into such degree of detail, but it looks at developments in key areas of development, so oncology, gene therapy and a number of acquisitions, by the way, which should be considered not just from a business point of view as it were, but also from a scientific viewpoint because, of course, most of these acquisitions are companies with research portfolios that are only just starting. And so you need to have a financial strategy, but you also need to have a clear scientific approach. And then there was one strategy seminar in 2020, and that reviewed all sorts of issues.
Dupixent, of course, is a key product for our growth, but the digital strategy or indeed Genmint. If you look at the share performance, the share price performance, you can see that there was one stage where the share price climbed back at some point in 2020. That was after the strategy was announced. And then there was another hike in the share price. That's since the beginning
You can see that as we stand, we're ahead. I mean, since 01/04/2021, we are right at the top of the benchmark, as it were. The end of last year was, if I may say so, marred by the announcements of the delay on the first COVID vaccine. Now regarding dividends, we've got 1.6% increase in the dividend payout based on the well, compared to 2020 that is based on the performance of 2019. That growth is less than our EPS growth and so the payout rate is slightly down.
But we will be going down that road for a number of years now with a view to saving money, of course, for M and A or indeed for Regarding CapEx and R and our shareholder structures, it's highly international, they're diversified. There's been some movement. If you compare 2019 and 2020, you'll find that there's an increased American shareholding, more employee shareholding as well, up to 1.8%, an additional 0.2 percentage points. And then for the rest of the territorial balance is pretty much the same, but there's slightly fewer British shareholders. And then if you look at our employee shareholder program, This is how it's been going since 2015.
And so now the shareholding portion is about 1.81% compared with 1.28% in 2015. And we will keep going. I mean, indeed, the shareholding plan have been adjusted to employee size without unleveraged so as to make it possible for our employees to keep these shares for a long time rather than having a system of come and go where employees would only keep their shares for a limited amount of time because of well, if they had to pay back a loan to acquire these shares, that would not do. Anyway, that's about all about the company and governance. It is my pleasure to give the floor to Patrick Cron, who chairs the compensation committee and who will tell you all about it.
Thank you, sir, and good afternoon, everyone. It is for me to report on the work of the compensation committee, which is entirely made up of independent directors, and it is my honor to share that committee. In keeping with what our Chairman just said, I will tell you about the compensation policy, but also aspects of the compensation packages of our corporate offices for the years 2020 and 2021. And this is covered by the draft resolutions eight to 13. It is well, you will have the details of that in the notice meeting.
Starting with the compensation policy for directors, so that is Resolution No. 11, and the details of that are to be found on Slide 19. This has maintained unchanged, both as regards the overall budget and the compensation structure. Of course, most of it is a variable part, which is based on the actual presence of directors, and that is in keeping with the governance recommendations. The only actual change is about the payment of the full compensation that is for a director living in France should that director attend a meeting online at the request of the company.
In the past, when directors attended online, there was smaller fee, but that is in keeping with what most listed companies do. Regarding Slides twenty and twenty one, and that is the compensation package of the Chairman of the Board, The general policy, again, has not changed for the year 2020. For 2020, the compensation total was brought to €800,000 It had remained stable at 700,000 ever since Mr. Weinberg came to office in 02/2009. And now we propose to keep it unchanged for the year 2021.
Regarding our CEO, and that is Slide 22, you will find that the structure of the compensation package has not changed. You have the basic compensation, variable compensation and performance shares. Now as you can see in Slide 23, we made the following changes. Regarding the targets and assessing the degree to which these targets were met. That regards to variable pay.
It was decided to increase the quantified part on targets. And so this means that quantified objectives or quantitative criteria account for at least two third of all the items that come into assessing assessment of the objectives and starting in 2021. That's the first change. The second change, and you may remember that a question was raised about the previous CEO, and that was about keeping the performance shares should the CEO leave the company prior to the end of the vesting period. Now it's a technical detail, but it is important.
At the request of the company, Paul Hudson accepted that the allocation rate should be worked out on a pro rata basis should he retire during the vesting period as indeed would be the case should he retire during that period. But other than that, the structure has remained pretty much the same and has been to our satisfaction. Regarding the compensation for 2020 for the CEO, so this is Slide 24. You have, therefore, the details and various items. You have, as I said, a fixed portion, which is unchanged compared to 2019.
Variable amount stands at 2,213,000.000 And so that the details of that will be listed on the next slide, but it is for you to approve. So that's a bonus of about 170% of the base salary, that is the fixed compensation. So the actual bracket is anywhere between 0250%, but the threshold is 150%. So it's between 0150% if the targets were met and above 50% up to 250% evolved if the targets were met or above. Then performance shares, 75,000 performance shares for the year 2020.
And now that all of these are subject to a performance criteria, both internal and Then there's a signing in bonus. You may remember that these were known as fadim stock units to the tune of EUR 2,011,000.000, and that's the equivalent of EUR 75,000 converted into cash. Now that is compensation for the losses suffered by Paul Hudson when he left his previous employer. And a similar setup is planned for the second half of this in 2021. And then additional defined contribution retirement package, again subject to performance criteria, EUR 439,000 with payments in kind amounting to €169,000 The following slide, Slide 25, lists indeed the achievement rates for the various objectives.
And again, they have been worked out in a bracket from zero to 167%. Now we're looking here at financial objectives. And so the first four lines whose weighting is 40% out of the 100% that work out the full variable part, comes to 100.8%. And so the allocation rate is 44.7% compared with 40% if the well, if the achievements were exactly in line with the objective. So you have this delta here.
Regarding the nonfinancial objectives, so these are individual objectives. The achievement rate success rates now in line with the committee's assessment and approved by the Board was 114.7%. So you have the work out line by line. And that at the request of our shareholders, we have given a breakdown of all every single line of the compensation package to look at all the objectives. And so the allocation rate is 68.8% compared with a baseline of 60% should the target be met exactly online.
And so you have overall 113.5%, that's when you combine 114.7118.8%. So that applies to the bonus on target. So remember, that 150%, €1,950,000 I beg your pardon. And so that's how you work out to the €2,213,000 and that is the full package that is subject to your approval. On the next slide, Slide 26, you have details of CEO's compensation package for the year 2021.
And this, again, is in line with the indications I outlined. So the basic compensation remains unchanged at €1,300,000 The same structure for the variable part with, as I said earlier, an increase in qualification. Now we've decided to make it simpler this year. You will have a first category of financial indicators that cover all economic indicators that are indicated, growth in revenue, EPS and operating margin. But if you add the new products that have come out of the R and D portfolio, that is the new active ingredients.
You have economic indicators to the tune of well, accounting for the first half, and these indicators have been quantified 100%. And then you have a second category of the specific individual objectives, and they are listed on the slide, including a portion that is qualified. And so all in all, it comes to well, it will be more than twothree of the full amount as in line with what was accepted our general compensation policy. Then you have performance shares. And so again, the criteria are the same as last year.
We're looking at 75,000 performance shares. Of course, they're full they're all subject to performance criteria. And then the balance that is the signing in bonus, and that, of course, is subject to presence in the company but also is subject to the company's performance for the year twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. So there you have it, sir. I hope I wasn't too long.
This is basically what our committee has done on the compensation of executive officers. Thank you, sir. Well, thank you, Patrick. And now without further ado, I'll give the floor to Paul Hudson, who will tell you about the achievements of this company and the strategy as it stands. Thank you, Serge, and good afternoon, everyone.
I would like to thank you for attending this AGM. Once again, I am sorry, I cannot meet you in person in Paris to exchange with you and take your questions live. For more than a year now, the pandemic has struck a number of countries, including France. While 2020 was a difficult year, but it brought Sanofi closer to its purpose. And I would like to underline here and highlight the remarkable work conducted by all the Sanofi teams in France and around the world.
In spite of the challenges and the accumulated fatigue, their hard work has made it possible to meet the needs of patients and make headways in the company's transformation. And you can be very proud of this company. Thanks to the commitment and hard work of our manufacturing people, we were able to avoid any shortage of essential medicines during the various stages of the pandemic. We were also in a position to produce a record number of vaccines of flu vaccines in twenty twenty to protect our populations. The work of R and D people has also made it possible for us to keep most of our clinical trials going for various diseases and therefore protect the development of our pipeline.
Our salespeople have kept an ongoing relations with our health care professionals and take and answer their questions directly. Sanofi also has played its role as a public health player as it developed two vaccines against COVID-nineteen, and it provided its manufacturing support to other manufacturing pharmaceutical companies for vaccines in Europe. So all in all, the year 2020 put our K2Win strategy under pressure. Nonetheless, our performance has strengthened our confidence in the choices that we've made. As you will be able to see in the rest of my presentation, Sanofi's transformation is underway on all levels of the company, even the pandemic didn't stop us.
Now if I may, I would not like to continue in English. I hope that next time, next year, my French will be better.
So let me first come back for a few moments on your company's response and engagement in the fight against COVID-nineteen. This response is truly world class, and I continue to be impressed and humbled by the purpose driven mindset of this organization, certainly since the onset of the pandemic. The company's approach could be summarized in simply one sentence, doing the right thing, doing the right things for society and doing the right thing to help protect lives. Our vaccines teams continue to work around the clock to advance the development of our own two vaccine candidates. And we are today the only pharma company developing two vaccines in house.
While SARS are not amongst the first vaccines to arrive in market, we remain confident that our vaccine candidates could make a meaningful contribution to combating the COVID-nineteen pandemic. And by making the decision to provide manufacturing support to other companies, we remain true to our commitment to public health and to society. Clearly, the pandemic has brought all of Sanofi closer to our purpose, more so than at any point in living memory. I truly learned what this company is about when confronted by a unique crisis, problem solving, entrepreneurship, purpose driven. But what's particularly impressive is how the company was able to step up against the virus while still advancing the long term strategy approved just a few months before the pandemic.
Before going into the specifics of our different businesses and late stage pipeline, I would like to provide some context on where we are in our own transformation journey. As you know, we have designed our play to win strategy around four pillars that I will further comment on in the next slides of this presentation. All of those pillars have the common ambition of giving us chances to change the practice of medicine and transform the lives of patients. It's not lost on me and members of the Executive Committee that this ambition brings with it some difficult but necessary decisions that impact different parts of our organization. We will move forward with these difficult decisions transparently and in dialogue and with respect for the impacted members of our workforce.
It is also clear that undertaking a deep and long term transformation is always a difficult exercise. Doing it in the midst of a global pandemic adds an extra layer of complexity. The stress and uncertainty created by the pandemic and the continuous flow information have often generated biased or simplistic narratives. Over the past months, those of us in France have indeed seen some media coverage that simply did not reflect fairly the contribution Sanofi is making against the fight of COVID-nineteen and our long term choices and ambition to transform the company or our footprint in the country. I would like to take the opportunity of today's meeting to underline that such controversies are simply groundless.
We take care of our people. And as a result, the voluntary attrition is less than 1% at Sanofi in France, lower than in any other market. And our workforce figures have been stable in the country over the last five years. Our people are also supporting and believing in our new strategy. That's notably illustrated by the record participation rate to our employees shareholding plan last year and the fact that 90% of the employees in France are shareholders of the company.
But our world is changing fast, building the Sanofi of the future and putting France at the heart of this long term strategy is requiring us to evolve, to refocus our resources and organization, to attract new talents and skill sets in vaccines, in oncology, in data science and in digital. And that's exactly what we are doing. Our full year 2020 results and of the 2021 have shown us that our choices and efforts are starting to bear fruit. We are at the beginning of a truly exciting new chapter of this company, including a new chapter for our science. Over the last twelve months or so, we have engaged in multiple M and A and business development transactions, deploying our capital to bolster the pipeline in existing priority areas.
What's driving us? Well, adding exciting science and first in class technologies to our pipeline. The 2021 have been particularly busy. Our teams have recently closed on three acquisitions and three business development deals. We have officially welcomed employees from Kymab and QIADIS to biotechs focused on immunology and oncology.
These companies founded in The UK and in The Netherlands, respectively, will strengthen our science footprint in Europe. The acquisition of Tidal Therapeutics just a few weeks ago also fits particularly well within our R and D strategy. The Tidal mRNA platform provides a novel approach to genetically modify a patient's own immune cells to attack their cancer. To cut to the chase, we are staying on the lookout for the best science and driven by our long term goal of changing the practice of medicine. This long term goal of changing the practice of medicine is exactly the one which is also driving us in immunology research and development.
The teams led by John Reed are focusing their efforts on medical needs for heterogeneous patient populations and are building a particularly broad portfolio of product candidates in dermatology and respiratory. Dupixent is, of course, the foundation and cornerstone of our future leadership in immunology. We will maximize the potential of this remarkable medicine, but we are already taking steps and decisive actions to change the treatment paradigms for patients in the long term. We are, for example, putting a lot of effort into advancing several promising oral programs in atopic dermatitis and asthma. And we also have the ambition to transform COPD therapy with itapekumab, now in addition to dupilumab to attempt to address more than eighty percent of patients with COPD across these two compounds.
Our goal in immunology is clear, to become the industry leader. We must stay humble as biology can always prove us wrong, but it is our clear and bold ambition. If our ambition in research and development is high, so too it is in Industrial Affairs. Since we announced our strategy, we have been taking major steps to transform our manufacturing network and reaffirm our commitment to excellence in manufacturing and supply. We are investing to expand our technological leadership in bioproduction, including vaccine manufacturing capacity.
We announced last year that we would make France our world class center of excellence in vaccine research and production. This investment of more than €05,000,000,000 will lead to the creation of a state of the art vaccine production site, the Evolutif vaccine facility, as we call it. And it will utilize the latest innovation the latest innovations in vaccines and production technologies and is expected to create 200 new jobs in the region of Lyon. We have also announced important investments in Canada and Singapore to increase our vaccine manufacturing capacity With manufacturing footprint in France, Europe, North America and Asia, we will be able to meet the greater vaccine demand and contribute to build regional sovereignty in health care. In the same spirit, we are also moving forward with the creation of EuroAPI, a new industry champion that will be headquartered in France and combine six of our European production sites of active pharmaceutical ingredient.
The pandemic has amplified the call for stronger European capacity to secure the supply of and access to essential medicines. The creation of EuroAPI will secure significant API manufacturing and supply capacities that are critical for patients in Europe and beyond. Last but not least, we are accelerating on the digitization of our network around the world. We recently announced an investment of €60,000,000 in our site of Cisteron to create a fully automized and digitalized chemistry unit. Our investment in this site is a concrete example of how innovation drives innovation.
This new unit will focus on accelerating, supporting the launch of new chemical molecules coming through our R and D portfolio. As you can see, the transformation of your company is underway across the value chain from R and D to manufacturing. The progress made over the past eighteen months is particularly remarkable, even more so in a global pandemic. All of our efforts and initiatives are fully aligned and come in support of our long term strategy designed and communicated in December 2019. And whilst it is clear that 2020 has been a kind of pressure test for our strategy, our performance reinforces our confidence in the choices we made.
We can clearly see that when looking at the performance of our growth drivers. Dupixent, with GBP 3,500,000,000.0 in sales in 2020, is Sanofi's biggest contributor to sales growth. And this is just the beginning of Dupixent's amazing growth trajectory. I'll share some more details in a moment. Our vaccine franchise has generated €6,000,000,000 in sales in 2020.
Influenza was certainly the strong driver, but the PPH portfolio also grew double digit to over €2,000,000,000 in annual sales. We are extremely confident that we will continue on our mid to high single digit growth ambition going forward. Our rich pipeline is gaining significant momentum, and we are only accelerating demonstrated by 12 projects entering Phase three in 2020 alone. In a nutshell, we are confident that we are on the right path, that we have made the right long term choices. The key is now to execute swiftly.
So let me provide you with more details on the performance of DUPIXENT and its outlook. I often say that DUPIXENT is a game changer. First and foremost, it is a game changer for the hundreds of thousands of patients around the world who suffer from atopic dermatitis, asthma, nasal polyps and other Type two inflammatory diseases. As I said earlier, DUPIXENT is a game changer, but it's a game changer for R and D and for science. In the light of its unique mechanism and safety profile, our confidence grows every day in the ability of the medicine to lead the transformation of the treatment of Type two inflammatory diseases and a range of dermatology and respiratory indications.
Chronic spontaneous urticaria, Type two COPD, to name only two. The brand has performed very well throughout the pandemic. This speaks to the strength and uniqueness of our profile and its acceptance amongst physicians and patients. As we make progress in 2021, we are planning to unlock the additional growth opportunities as we seek regulatory approvals for expansion into younger populations due to its demonstrated favorable safety profile. We will also continue to expand geographically in Europe and around the world.
Here, let me specifically mention China, where we see significant growth opportunities starting in 2021 with the inclusion of Dupixent on the National Drug Reimbursement List for adults with atopic dermatitis. We believe we can unlock Dupixent's blockbuster potential in this country with possible approvals in adolescents with AD in mid-twenty twenty one and with the ongoing asthma trials. Overall, Dupixent is well on track to achieve its £10,000,000,000 plus peak sales target. 2020 clearly demonstrated the key role that vaccines, our second growth driver, plays in protecting population health. For the full year, we grew 9% in 2020, the second year in a row of single high digit growth at the upper end of our mid to high single digit growth outlook announced in December 2019.
Our fundamentals are very strong, and we are confident in our capacity to achieve mid- to high single digit growth. The pandemic has weighed on our travel and adult booster vaccines, but the strong performance of some of our key franchises has largely offset this negative impact. I want to first underline the continued strong performance across our pediatric combinations vaccine portfolio. 2020 also proved to be a critical year for our flu vaccines franchise, with for the first time, we exceeded €2,000,000,000 an increase of 38% compared to 2019. The manufacturing teams worked around the clock in response to increased demand, allowing us to ship more than two fifty million doses worldwide, up over 20%.
This strong performance also relies on our strategy to shift our portfolio to our differentiated vaccines that offer a high degree of protection for the most vulnerable. Let me also say a few words on the mRNA technology that seems to work so well in COVID-nineteen vaccines, but could also be applicable for flu. Of course, clinical data in seasonal influenza must still be generated and would have to surpass the efficacy as well as the annual safety benchmark set by our differentiated flu vaccines. Nevertheless, we will soon start our Phase one trial of an mRNA flu vaccine, which we are on track to initiate in the middle of this year. Regardless of high dose, recombinant protein, mRNA or a combination of those platforms, We intend to remain the leading provider of flu vaccines protecting people around the globe.
Moving to General Medicines and Consumer Health, I would like first to emphasize the critical role these two GPUs play in our broader corporate transformation. I often say to our teams that if I was starting my career now, I would want to join the general medicines business. I truly believe it is the place to be if you want to learn the skills of the future of the industry. With strong assets, multiple standards of care medicines in diabetes and cardiovascular, we have all of the necessary ingredients to make it a resilient, sustainable business, and we have set a clear objective of stabilizing sales over the twenty twenty to twenty twenty five period. To achieve this, we are taking decisive actions to drastically change our business model with a sharper focus on key markets and core assets, which we expect to grow to around 60% of sales by 2025.
This, coupled with the profound transformation of our go to market model, including increased use of digital. This transformation will enable General Medicines to remain a significant contributor to the company's BOI and will help fund our Specialty Care pipeline. In Consumer Health, we continue to be driven by the strong belief that there is significant value to unlock in our business. Last September, Judy Van Ongeval joined Sanofi to lead Consumer Health, bringing with her more than twenty years of international experience in the cosmetics industry. Judy's deep knowledge of consumer and digital is already playing a key role in helping us build a stand alone, agile and multilocal brands consumer health care business.
Our CHE road map is focused on three pragmatic strategic priorities: first, address our legacy of a rather complex portfolio by refocusing on key brands and geographies second, change our mindset and become a holistic consumer centric brand building business to unleash the untapped potential of our brands and third, accelerate the digital and data journey with initiatives ranging from data driven decision making to accelerating e commerce. The move to a stand alone model with dedicated support functions will enable the right level of agility and speed for our Consumer Health business to thrive. The transformation is going full speed. We are fully focused to deliver on our two OTC switch opportunities, Tamiflu and Cialis, and our ambition is to capture best in market growth with switches from 2024, 2025 onwards. For my final slide, I wanted to give you an update on the late stage priority assets we spotlighted when we announced our long term strategy in December 2019.
All of these assets have the potential to be first or best in class in their own therapeutic areas. Eighteen months after the announcement of our strategy and in a pandemic, I'm proud to say that our R and D teams have made great progress in moving them forward. In multiple sclerosis, we already mentioned last year the positive Phase 2b results for tolobrutinib. Our acquisition of Principia Biopharma during the 2020 has given us full control on this asset, which could potentially be truly disease modifying. In hemophilia, all relevant health authorities have approved redosing of fitusiran, and the majority of patients have resumed dosing already following our interactions with the FDA.
We are planning for a submission in The U. S. In the 2022. And for efaniscoticog alfa, previously known as BIVV001, we have completed Phase III enrollment and are expecting pivotal data early in 2022. In RSV, a major public health issue for infants, we announced just a couple of days ago an important step forward in the fight against this pathogen.
Nosevimab has the potential to be a truly transformational asset designed to provide the protection for all infants globally entering their first RSV season. We are now planning regulatory submissions to start in 2022, one year ahead of schedule. Last but definitely not least, we expect soon to see data readouts for amsunestrin. This homegrown asset discovered by our own R and D teams in our VITRI seat here in Paris could help transform the lives of women with breast cancer, and it could play a key role as we rebuild a strong oncology franchise. To cut to the chase, Sanofi is on the move.
We are confident the resiliency of our business is set up well for the new phase of growth. Of course, we have a lot to do, many challenges to address, but we are on our way to be sure, clearing obstacle after obstacle. I am proud and humbled to be at the helm of such committed teams. There is something truly special in how this company has stepped up as one in the fight against COVID-nineteen whilst not losing track of its long term agenda. 2020 has been the first execution of our business strategy.
And as you can see from our figures and updates, we believe we are on the right path. But 2020 will also remain as the year during which we elevated our social impact ambition, embedding it directly into our business strategy. If we are committed to accelerate our own business transformation, we also know we can do more for society. With that, a great pleasure to hand over to Sandrine, our Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, for to present our renewed commitments to society. And thank you so much for your attention.
And now a video and then Sandrine.
The COVID nineteen pandemic has drawn new attention to the inequalities people face every day. To reduce these inequalities, Sanofi is accelerating its efforts to close the gap between those who have access to lifesaving health care and those who do not. Its first step is to launch a nonprofit business unit, Sanofi Global Health, to provide access to essential medicines for people in the world's 40 poorest countries, where a staggering 2,000,000,000 people still lack access to health care. Sanofi will expand its work with vulnerable communities through the development of new treatments for children suffering from rare forms of cancer. By developing these treatments without recouping costs, Sanofi could cut the childhood cancer death rate in half within the next decade.
Sanofi will also support vulnerable communities by building on its fight to eradicate sleeping sickness by 2030 and to help wipe out polio. Sanofi is strengthening its efforts to protect the planet. This means rethinking its products and operations in order to shrink its environmental footprint. The backbone of Sanofi's commitment society has always been its people who are working to break down the visible and invisible barriers that separate people from each other. By championing diversity and equality, Sanofi is building empowered, inclusive teams that reflect the communities where they work.
Much has already been done, but there is always more to do. At Sanofi, we know we can do more.
Good afternoon to all. Before I go into the practical details of Sanofi societal commitments, I wanted to give you some elements of context that have led us to implement this new, more ambitious road map. The world is changing. New technologies lead us to change our ways of behaving, moving, eating, working, communicating but also transforming the access to care and patient lives. At the same time, we're, in fact, faced with new very fast threats, new threats on health with the emergence of new diseases, destabilization of health care systems in some areas, climate change whose link with health is no longer needs to be demonstrated.
For example, we see the arrival of tropical diseases in the North, scarcity of resources, access to water. Water becomes a rare element in some areas. Of course, we cannot forget societal and social inequalities, notably racism, all kinds of discrimination, geopolitical conflicts but also poverty. All this was exacerbated by the COVID crisis, whose devastating effects will still be felt for many years. Today, the number of people who do not have access to quality health care is about two billion people in the world.
As actor in the pharma industry, we clearly have a role to play and even a key role to play. We already have a number of initiatives scattered throughout the world, but they are not as impactful as we would like them to be. We can do more. That is why the members of the XCOM have proposed to the Board a new road map with societal commitments that will raise our level of ambition and increase the impact on society while bringing value to Sanofi. This new road map is totally aligned with Sanofi's mission in raison d'etre, access to care and the transformation of patient lives is also aligned with SDGs and the Play to Win strategy.
In the following slide, I'd like to tell you more about the societal commitments that were, in fact, given last April during the Day of Health. Four pillars: access to health. With the creation of a nonprofit entity, I will tell you more about in a while. We're also engaged in giving vials and treatments to treat patients having rare diseases and who unfortunately cannot afford the treatment. We are considering the gift of 100,000 vials a year, and we will increase that number afterward.
We're also thinking about provision, making available the treatment to a wider number of patients two years after their first launch. Of course, vulnerable communities are also at the heart of our strategy. And polio is one of WHO's priorities because we have to reach eradication in the next few years. Unfortunately, COVID has increased the number of cases, and Sanofi Pasteur has been a partner for a long time. We are reinforcing our commitment with WHO to eradicate that disease.
Regarding sleeping sickness that should be eliminated by 02/1930, Sanofi is the only pharma to co develop drugs to eradicate this disease. Now we have treatments under development that will simplify access to treatment for patients, and those treatments will be less invasive. Cancer, pediatric cancer is also one of our concern because cancer is the first reason of death for children in the world. So in the oncology pipeline we have, we're looking at those treatments that could be used for children. Of course, we are going to have new clinical and preclinical studies to see whether those treatments could be administered to children.
Thirdly, the environment, as Serge Memberg said, is also at the heart of our system with two directions, mainly first, the environmental impact of products we are putting on the market. We have committed to look at the environmental footprint of those products, be it active ingredient, galanic forms, but also the devices and the packaging in order to reduce that impact. The illustration of this commitment is the following: We're implementing an action plan to do away with all plastic blisters for vaccines by 2027. Another environmental commitment, of course, climate change. Today, in Sanofi, the road map is such that we have been able to make a commitment with the science based initiative to remain under 1.4 degree 1.5 degree.
Several action plans are implemented to boosters the use of renewable electricity on all of our sites by 02/1930, but also a fleet of vehicles that will be carbon neutral by the same date.
The last
pillar concerns our employees but also the communities, an inclusive workplace. By 2025, we want the community of our senior leaders to be representative of the global population and our patients by 2025. That is part of the new diversity and inclusion program we're implementing. To also engage our senior leaders in this societal adventure, we have committed that all senior leaders should have in their development program a societal experience in order to support some of the projects that will make it possible to integrate that CSR culture but also act as a role model. Finally, the last commitment is to help local communities where we work to contribute to their social and economic development with different initiatives, one of which will be, in fact, volunteer based, and that will be for all employees in the world.
I'd like to focus for one minute access to health care, the way in which Sanofi is providing an answer to those who need it most. First, I'd like to tell you about the return of the ATM index classifying the companies allowing access to drugs and vaccines in low- and middle income countries. This rating happens every two years. In 2021, Sanofi went from seventh to fifth position out of 20 pharmas. Those ratings are not the only driver of our commitment, but we have decided to implement, we've announced it on April 7, a new nonprofit entity that will be called Sanofi Global Health, whose raison d'etre will be to provide 30 drugs on WHO's essential list in 40 of the poorest countries, I.
E, a population of about six fifty million people. We really want to make a difference not only in terms of number of drugs, number of countries concerned, but all of those drugs cover eight therapeutic areas, which offers quite a wide panel. Of course, it's not only a question of providing drugs or giving drugs, but also helping local health system, health care professionals, populations in the context of their disease management. All of those actions have been announced April. They are, in fact, being deployed throughout Sanofi.
Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Sandrine, for this presentation. We're now going to hear Natalie Bickford, who is going to tell us about Sanofi's ambition for Next slide. Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, before I start presenting your company's results for fiscal year twenty twenty, I wanted to go back to Sandre's presentation and underlies Sanofi's commitment in sustainable development, which is part and parcel of our Play to Win strategy. Sanofi has innovated in the pharma sector with by signing in December 2020 its first two revolving credit lines index on sustainable development indicators, I.
E, its contribution to eradicating polio and a 30% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020, Sanofi's business EPS is up 9% on a constant exchange races basis, higher than the top part of the announced outlook, I. E, a growth between 78% on a CER basis. Sales are up 3% on a CER basis, euros 36,000,000,000. Above and beyond our business EPS objective, our tax rate has remained in keeping with our forecast.
We're proposing this year an increased dividend, as our President just said. Our activities can be spread in three segments: Pharma, CHC and Vaccines. In the Pharma area, business has grown by 3.1% on a CER basis, mainly thanks to Specialty Care, reflecting the very strong performance of Dupixent. The slowdown in Genmed is mainly due to price pressure in our diabetes activity in The U. S.
As well as established prescription products, reflecting notably the impact of the VBP, VPB program in China on Plavix and Co. Proval, the negative effect of COVID and disposal of nonstrategic products. The one point nine percent reduction on a CER basis in CHC reflects the impact of the voluntary recall of Zantac, product suspensions related to the change in regulatory permits in Europe and disposal of nonstrategic brands. Outside of Zantac, CHC sales have remained stable in 2020. Finally, vaccine performance has remained strong despite the impact of COVID on travel vaccines and adult boosters.
Sanofi Pasteur has gained 8.8% on a CER basis, driven by a record year for our flu vaccines and the good performance of our pediatric vaccine. Let's look at the income statement. Our business operating income is up by 9.6% more than our sales, up 3.3% still on a CER basis. Our operating result income reflects our initiative to streamline G and A, the reallocation of R and D expenditures in specialty care projects and the suspension of development expenditures in diabetes and cardiovascular in keeping with our strategy. This reduction in operating expenditure integrates very significant investments in our growth engines and in our key R and D projects.
On our R and D investments in Specialty Care and Vaccines are a considerable 25.9% of sales. Our tax rate has remained stable, 22%. We have released in December 29 our plan aiming at saving €2,000,000,000 by 2022. Out of this total, we had planned that €500,000,000 would come from the expenditure prioritization, 1,000,000,000 from procurement cost control and €500,000,000 from operational excellence. In 2020, we've already reached about €1,700,000,000 in savings, I.
E, 85% of our 'twenty two objective. End of 2020, we reached our objective objective of €500,000,000 related to prioritization and exceeded the same objective in operational excellence. 60% of the savings achieved have been reinvested in our growth engines in our key R and D projects. We've also announced during the presentation of our 2020 results last February an increase of €500,000,000 in our savings objective, which is now €2,500,000,000 by 2020. These extra €500,000,000 in savings will come from our continued effort in operational excellence.
The totality of these extra savings will be reinvested to support the growth of our business and in our R and D projects if our sales allow. As you know, we've announced also in December a number of objectives in terms of business operating margin, 30% in 2022, 32% in 'twenty five. We're on the right track to reach those objectives in 'twenty '2 and 'twenty five. Indeed, our business operating margin has gone from 25.9% to 27.1% in 2020. The main drivers of this improvement by 2022 are on the right hand side of your slide.
Moreover, Dupixent should make a positive contribution to the business operating margin by the 2022. Let's now look at the IFRS consolidated income. This figure has reached 12,300, up 338%. This very significant increase reflects a gain of €7,200,000,000 related to the disposal of Regeneron. Beyond this disposal gain, the fact that we went from 7,347 million euros to an IFRS figure of 12,315 million euros is also related to the following elements: the intangible amortization, Genzyme Bioverativ, Consumer Healthcare of BI and Ablynx, the depreciation of intangible fixed assets, the restructuring costs related mainly to simplification initiatives in Europe and, of course, the tax impact of those various elements.
As of December 2020, our balance sheet is very sound. We have equity of €63,100,000,000 Our financial debt 2020 stands at €8,800,000,000 down €6,300,000,000 reflecting Regeneron €10,400,000,000 as well as the financing of Synthorix, 2,200,000,000.0 and Principean, 3,000,000,000. Our free cash flow has reached €7,000,000,000 in 2020, up 16.1% versus 2019 and all strongly up versus 2018. In keeping with our objectives, reflecting the growth of our business, the success of our streamlining initiatives, we have continued investing in our growth engine and R and D. The diagram on the right represents the evolution of net debt.
2020, it is down to €6,300,000,000 It reaches now €8,800,000,000 So last Wednesday, we published our first quarter results, which compared to a strong first quarter last year. Indeed, the 2020 had benefited from a positive COVID effect related to the constitution of stocks by some circuits and patients. We had indicated that about half of the growth in the business EPS and sales was were related to that effect. In the 2021, sales stood at 8,591 million euros down 4.3% and up 2.4% on a CER basis. This growth was mainly driven by the strong performance of Dupixent.
The business EPS is up 5.2 on a reported daily basis, 15% on a CER basis, 9.8% if we exclude a payment made Sankyo related to the end of collaboration in Japan. For 2021, our business EPS should be a high single digit growth objective. We should be a little under 10%. Given the unfavorable evolution of certain foreign currencies since last year, we think that the impact of foreign exchange on our business EPS in 'twenty one should be between minus 4% and minus 5%. We are confident in the quality of our results and the outlook of our activity in a context that is still upset by the COVID-nineteen.
Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much, Jean Baptiste. I am now going to give the floor to our external auditors who are going to present Thank you. Before I open the debate, I'd like to clarify a number of points. First, we have received before the general meeting 22 written questions.
The answers to these questions are on the company's website in keeping with regulations. Contrary to last year, where we could not have an appropriate system, this year, we're going to be able to answer directly the questions asked by shareholders because the tool used for streaming the meeting allows you to ask question by electronic means. We've received a few questions we're going to try and answer. First of
all, a
number of questions again on the COVID vaccine or about the COVID treatment. There's notably one question by Mr. Louis Mott who asked when is it that you will have an anti COVID treatment. Paul, do you have anything to say to this question?
A couple of things. We pursued two COVID treatments early in the pandemic, but we didn't demonstrate the necessary efficacy in the broader populations. That's public, and we've shared that many times. Just to give some background to the COVID vaccine progress, I think Serge mentioned it, but in the May, we'll get an update on our own vaccine performance for recombinant baculovirus. And then we'll move to the mRNA data, which we hope to get in Q3 of this year, two vaccines, the only company to do two vaccines.
In addition, we are we've stepped forward because we're a purpose driven organization, as you know, to help three other companies make volumes of vaccine because this is a society first challenge, and we must get there as fast as we can. While we were disappointed last year, we were doing something in a year that normally takes ten years. And as you can see, it's not been an easy ride for all the vaccine makers and everybody that has participated, everybody trying to find their way. We will play a part at the end of the year. I'm very proud of all of the effort and energy that all of our people put into this effort.
I've said it many times, and I will keep saying it. Our people, if you could see how hard they work to get this right, yes, we were disappointed, but we're confident going forward, and we hope to play our part by the end of the year.
Thank you, Paul. Another question, which is related by Maurice Thibault. You have a partnership with The U. S. Biotech in the area of mRNA, Translate Bio.
Do you think that this new technology is promising for vaccines? Could it also mean more competition?
So we know a year ago, there was no evidence that mRNA would work as a vaccine, and there've been many attempts. We know now that in a pandemic, a single antigen pandemic, almost like not an easy target, but a clearly identifiable target, that mRNA is probably the best solution in future because you can mobilize it faster because of the way it's manufactured. So we believe going forward, mRNA will probably be the first go to mechanism. Of course, like I just said, we'll participate there too. The question of whether it's applicable outside of a pandemic is a really interesting one.
We signed a collaboration with this mRNA company, Translate Bio, that you referenced in 2017. And then we expanded that in 2019 because we will be a leading vaccine maker, whatever happens. So we will have our existing platforms, and we will have an mRNA platform. And we will be in the clinic, as mentioned, with influenza this year. So the race is on.
We don't know if they will work mRNA in these broader illnesses. But if they do or if they allow us to tackle diseases that we're not able to be tackled with existing platforms, then that's progress. And frankly, we welcome it because it's good for society. So we're going to play whatever happens, and we're going to do the right thing, whatever happens. And that partnership is under acceleration and going incredibly well.
Thank
you, Paul. Still in the area efficacy of your vaccine on the variants?
So a couple of things. It is the same platform as we use for influenza. And that's how this journey began for us because that was our base. That was would have been our only attempt. And just to oversimplify the technicalities, we make the vaccine in a manufacturing facility, and then we inject the vaccine so it stimulates a response in people.
So they build immunity over time. We know with mRNA, it's a little bit the reverse. You inject the patient and the patient makes the vaccine, if you like, inside them. I'm oversimplifying, but I think it's important for you to know. What we're discovering now with the variants and now, of course, with the new indium variant, that the data and the studies that were done can't keep pace with the variants that are moving.
That said, our Phase III program, we hope, if our data is good on Phase II, will start at the May or sometime around that point. And we need to decide how to include efficacy in patients with different variants over the remainder of the year because that is the data that I think the society is going to ask for. Not subpopulation data from old studies of last year, but emerging variant data and how efficacious you are. We don't know yet how efficacious we will be because we haven't run the study. We are optimistic we need to get to first base in May on the Phase two and then move into Phase three and then start considering the variants perhaps in parallel, we will see, depending on our data.
But again, we remain optimistic, but we know how important this question is, and we'll try and provide data that can help society address that.
One question that is still in the area of vaccine but from a different angle. Agnes Dudiceli, a former employee, why is it that the bad performance of vaccine has no impact on compensation of senior management, CEO, Chairman, etcetera? I think that I will answer. We could have asked also Patrick Conte to answer that question, but the answer is very simple. The management's objectives are set at the very beginning of the year, January and February.
And of course, those are the yearly objectives. At the time, 2020, we were at the beginning of our vaccine effort. It is at the January 2020 that WHO talked of a pandemic risk. We have, therefore, maintained this decision was appreciated by all proxies. We have maintained, without changing it our compensation system, variable compensation, whereas other companies have decided to change management's objectives to take into account positive or mostly negative effects of pandemic.
Therefore, that is the decision of principle that we took. Naturally, in the parameters for 2021, we have introduced variables that are related to vaccines. Another question totally different from Sanofi is going to give more independence to CHC. Why not go further and consider a listing on the stock exchange to give the more value to Sanofi's share?
The and we covered it again earlier, and it's a great question, but we have a very viable and we have very productive and successful consumer business. We realized quickly that it was being suffocated in systems within a big pharma company. And so what we did, and it was smart, I think, was to try and carve in, so to give it all of the opportunity to grow faster, move at its own speed, the speed of its competition. So we know that we have a business that can grow and outperform with an ambition. And from a capital allocation perspective, it can be accretive to the overall group financial performance.
So if we're enabling it to be successful and we have switch opportunities to grow faster than the market in 'twenty '4 and 'twenty five, then it makes it it's very sensible. And we look at all of our businesses the same way. How can we add more value? How can we get to more patients? Is it a good use of capital?
And we think we have a really impressive plan. And under Julie's leadership, we're starting to see things moving already. So agility first, that's the decision we took in CHC.
Thank
you, Paul. One question again regarding a past acquisition by Jacques Monet. How do you analyze Bioverativ's acquisition after the provision of 3,600,000,000.0 created a year ago in the 2020. Jean Baptiste? Yes.
Thank you for this question. Indeed, you have depreciation following this acquisition, the impairment. What can we say about it today, I. E, the value we have put on this acquisition was not where we put it in our accounting. But I really hope that today, in the product portfolio on which we had put little money on, like BIVV001, we're seeing a lot of potential, an incredible potential behind some of those compounds.
So at first sight, the valuation of this asset was not on the drugs we thought would be successful but rather in the this company's pipeline. Thank you, Jean Baptiste. One question that was already answered in Mr. Cron's presentation. Marco Weber, what happens if resolution given that Resolution 19 that was not approved last year?
Following this nonapproval of Resolution 19 last year that could not have practical and legal consequences. Nevertheless, we've decided to modify the rules about our LTIs. And now the pro rata temporaries will apply to those instruments so that we don't find ourselves again in the situation we found ourselves in the second half in 2019 when Olivier Rendikour retired. We have one last question by Jean Pierre de Souling. I would like to know whether Sanofi has used the quality of Bernard Charles.
Do we already have significant digital health platforms? Why don't we try an acquisition?
It's an excellent question. And you'll have noticed Serge mentioned it in his speech, the work that you're not seeing yet, the work that we're doing to transform the company and digitize it and data, the appointment of a new Chief Digital Officer. We're a company that grew from 300 acquisitions over thirty years, and we have some legacy fragmentation of systems. And we needed now we reached a point where we have to, given the importance of data, bring those things together. I think Bernard Charles and his role on the Board has been a great catalyst to say it's a good time to move even faster.
Bernard has also been able to provide us some great opportunities with some of the software products from his own company. You may be a little bit surprised to know that some of the brilliant work our scientists do in the laboratories across France and the world, we use notebooks and paper and pen to record the information. Whilst that's okay, we miss an opportunity to analyze that data on a more broad field and to connect it to industrial data further down the line to improve our manufacturing. Bernard has provided some tremendous inspiration on how to connect those pieces with his own company, and he's done it putting more energy perhaps than people realize into trying to help us reach a good outcome. And so we're pleased with the progress.
We think we will jump straight to a version of two point zero in this field. It takes a long time, but it's worthy work and it had to start and it started. So I think we have really leveraged Bernard's energy, enthusiasm and experience.
I could add that one of the reasons why Bernard Charles left the Board is probably related to Sanofi's growing ambition in the digital area. We already have had to sign special contracts with Dassault Systemes. I am sure that this collaboration will continue and will certainly increase. So we just all wanted to avoid conflict of interest given the growth of our investment in the digital area. No more questions.
Thank you for your interest in the company. We're now going to move directly to resolutions, the vote on resolutions. Philippe? As said, the vote of shareholders has been recorded already. I propose to give you the results of the votes resolution by resolution.
The
first resolution is the approval of the individual company financial statements for the year ended 12/31/2020, and the acceptance is 99.9%. The second one is for the approval of the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 12/31/2020, adopted at 99.84. Number three, appropriation of the results for the year ended December 3120 and declaration of dividend. Again, we have a 99.76% approval rate. Resolution number four, ratification of the co opting of Gilles Schneepp as a director.
And the vote is passed the resolution is passed with 92.62% of the votes. And number five, reappointment of Fabienne Le Corbusier as a director. This is adopted with 98.05% of the votes. Number six, reappointment of Melanie Lee as a director, 98.62, 63% in favor.
Eight,
approve number seven, sorry, appointment of Barbara Lavanos as a director, 97.53% in favor. Number eight, approval of the report on the compensation of corporate officers issued in accordance with Article L22-one 109 of 10.9 of the French Commercial Code, 97.33% of the votes in favor. Number nine, approval of the components of the compensation paid or awarded in respect to the year ended thirty one December twenty twenty. To Serge Reineberg, ninety eight point four three percent of the votes in favor. Number 10, approval of the components of the compensation paid or awarded in respect to the year ended thirty one December twenty twenty to Paula Hudson, CEO, 92.63% of the votes in favor.
Number 11, approval of the compensation policy for directors adopted with 99.59% of the votes. Number 12, approval of the compensation policy for the chairman of the board of directors, 90.53% of the votes in favor. Number 13, approval of the compensation policy for the CEO, 92.85% in favor and 14, for the ordinary business authorization to the Board of Directors to carry out transactions in the company's shares usable outside the period of a public tender offer, 98.23% of the votes in favor. We now move on to the extraordinary business, Resolution No. 15.
Authorization to the Board of Directors to reduce the share capital by cancellation of treasury shares, 99.64% of the votes in favor. Number 16, delegation to the Board of Directors of competence to decide to issue with preemptive rights maintained shares and or securities giving access to the share capital of the company of any subsidiary and or of any other company usable outside the period of a public tender offer. We have 93.64% of the votes in favor. Number 17, delegation to the Board of Directors of competence to decide to issue with preemptive rights canceled shares and or securities giving access to the share capital of the company of any subsidiary and of any other company via a public offering offer other than that specified in Article L41121 of the French Monetary and Financial Code usable outside the period of public tender offer 92.73% of the votes in favor. Resolution 18, delegation to the Board of Directors of competence to decide to issue with preemptive rights canceled shares and or securities giving access to the share capital of the company of any subsidiary and or of any other company in connection with an offering of the type specified in Article four L41-one 121 of the Monetary and Financial Code, I.
E. An office addressed exclusively to restricted circles of investors, 90.73 of the votes in favor. 19, dedication to the Board of Directors of confidence to decide to issue debt instruments giving access to the share capital of subsidiaries and of any company usable outside the period of the public offer tender with 95.89 percent of votes in favor, the resolution is carried. Resolution number 20, delegation to the Board of Directors of competence to increase the number of shares to be issued in the event of an issue of ordinary shares and or of securities giving access to the share capital of the company of any subsidiary and or of any other company with or without preemptive rights usable outside the period of the public tender offer. We have 90.12% of the votes in favor.
The resolution is passed. Number 21, delegation to the Board of Directors of Competence with a view to the issuance with preemptive rights canceled of shares and or securities giving access to the share capital of the company of any of its subsidiaries and or of any other company as consideration for assets transferred to the company as a capital contribution in kind. This is accepted with 95.75% of the votes. Number 22, delegation to the Board of Directors of competence to decide to carry out increases in the share capital by incorporation of the share premium, reserves, profits or other items usable outside period of the public tender offer, 99.73% of the votes in favor. Number 23, delegation to the board of directors of competence to decide on the issuance of share or securities, giving access to the company's share capital reserved for members of the savings plans.
With waiver of preemptive rights in their favor, 96.75% of the votes are in favor. Number 24, authorization to the Board of Directors to carry out consideration free allotments of existing of new shares to some or all of the salaried employees and corporate officers of the company. This is carried with 94.37% of the votes. Number 25, amendment of Article 13 of the Articles of Association to allow the Board of Directors to take decisions by written consultation. Here, have 99.08% of the votes in favor.
Number twenty seven twenty six, I beg your pardon, amendment to Articles fourteen and seventeen of the Articles of Association to align their content with the PACTE law, and that has been adopted with 99.27% of the votes. Finally, powers for formalities, number 27, approved with 99.92% of the votes. Well, thank you, Philippe. Ladies and gentlemen, well, all the resolutions have been voted on and the agenda is completed. This brings this AGM to a close.
I certainly hope we will meet in person next year on 05/03/2022. And until then, I wish you a very good year. Now thank you for being with us. Thank you for trusting us, and we'll see you soon again.