Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I hereby call to order the general meeting of our company, that I have the honor of chairing for the last time, because my term of office as director is expiring at the end of this meeting. I would like to thank all the shareholders who have voted by mail before the meeting, and all those who are currently following the live stream of that same meeting. The recording will remain available on the Internet after broadcast. I have with me Paul Hudson, Chief Executive Officer, Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon, Chief Financial Officer, and Philippe Peyre . Are also present, and they will speak later from the lectern, Patrick Kron, Chairman of the Compensation Committee, Audrey Derveloy, Chair of Sanofi France, and Sandrine Bouttier-Stref, Head of CSR. We are now going to appoint the Bureau.
I suggest that we name Philippe Peyre as Secretary of the meeting. I ask the company L'Oréal, represented by Mr. Alexandre Menais, and the company Amundi Asset Management, represented by Ms. Orsolya Gal, the two shareholders with the highest number of votes, to please serve as tellers, a function that they have accepted. The statutory auditors are also attending this meeting. Ms. Anne-Claire Ferrié of the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, is representing the College of Auditors, and she will present their reports. Mr. Alexis Hurtrel, with her, is representing the firm Ernst & Young. Mr. Eric Mielle, bailiff at court, is attending the meeting. This meeting is filmed and broadcast live on the company website. The recording will remain accessible on the web after broadcast. I will now give the floor to Mr. Philippe Peyre, our Secretary.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
The shareholders have signed the attendance sheet at the entrance, both in their own name or as proxies. Based on this attendance list, the shareholders present or represented, bring together over a quarter of shares with voting rights. Together, they own 936,565,703 shares, or 74.94% of shares with voting rights. Consequently, and although the quorum is not yet final, it already transpires from the attendance list that the meeting can validly decide.
On the desk, we have the articles of association of the company, a copy of the convening letter sent to nominative shareholders, copies and receipt warrants of the registered letters sent to the statutory auditors, a copy of Bulletin des Annonces Légales Obligatoires, dated seventh April 2023, with the notice of the meeting, a copy of Les Petites Affiches and the Bulletin des Annonces Légales Obligatoires, dated of the fifth of May, 2023, with the convening notice. The statutory auditor's reports, the attendance list of the meeting, proxies for representative shareholders, as well as all the documents prescribed by law that were made available to shareholders at the head office within the prescribed deadlines and sent to those who requested them. The agenda is on pages eight and nine of the convening brochure.
Detailed explanations on the resolutions are to be found in the board of directors report, accessible on the website and on pages 10 and following of the convening brochure. No draft resolutions or extra items in the agenda were filed and tabled by shareholders. Finally, you've received, either from Uptevia or from your financial intermediary, all the legally required documents related to this meeting.
Thank you, Philippe. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I am happy to be with you for our general meeting, which is going to be an opportunity to present not only the accounts of Sanofi for 2022, but also the various achievement of this company. In a context marked by the utmost instability, both geopolitical but also economic and social in many parts of the world, Sanofi made significant progress in 2022. It.
Despite the return of inflation, supply difficulties, reduced activity in some countries, and measures adopted to reduce healthcare costs incurred by states or local authorities. Several reasons explain that in spite of this objectively deteriorated environment, Sanofi was able to achieve particularly robust performance, with sales exceeding, for the very first time, EUR 40 billion, EUR 43 billion, to be very precise, and income per share growing by 17% at constant foreign exchange. Financial performance was there. The figures that will be presented more in detail later, do not express the full extent of the work done and the progress achieved in various areas, chief amongst which, significant progress in our research and development portfolio.
First of all, the growth of Dupixent in its first indications, atopic dermatitis, asthma, and nasal polyposis, was remarkable, and it will be strengthened in the future by the demonstration of its efficacy in various other pathologies. More recently, we were able to announce that Dupixent was effective against Chronic Obstructive pulmonary disease, a disease for which there was so far no effective treatment. In 2022, it is noteworthy that two products went through the last few milestones to allow for a launch in 2023. ALTUVIIIO, a particularly innovative product in hematology, coming from the acquisition of Bioverativ in 2018, and Beyfortus, a vaccine effective against lower respiratory tract disease in infants. You know that this disease reached epidemic levels last autumn.
New steps were cleared in 2023, the further details of which will be given during the presentation, to show that our research and development organization has achieved significant progress, and they can now consider accelerating the innovation produced by Sanofi. This results, moreover, into a major increase in our R&D expenditures, which grew by over EUR 1 billion in 2022. In other fields, the various programs aiming to strengthen the effectiveness of our organizations are at work, especially through the homogenization of industrial processes. 2022 was also the year of the IPO of EuroAPI, helping this company leverage resources for its development that it could not have been able to find in our group.
Digitalization is well underway, especially in R&D, where data and artificial intelligence will allow for better relevance, especially with shortened clinical trials, faster marketing with tools that will help optimize the use of resources. This work is led jointly by our internal teams and the creation of enhanced competency centers, like for instance, the digital accelerator, a stone's throw from here. Also, through the recruitment of more skilled employees, but also through partnerships with specialized startups, both in France and in the US. In 2022, all of the group's activities made a significant contribution to our efficiency. Specialty Care, of course, and more specifically, products related to immunology, the strong growth of Dupixent, will significantly cushion the loss of patent on Aubagio in 2023. Aubagio is a product that's effective against multiple sclerosis, on which we are still looking for innovative solutions.
General Medicines, which is going from a universal model to a model focusing on the most significant products in countries and a streamlining of the product portfolio. We can also show innovation there, as evidenced by the recent acquisition of Provention Bio with a product against type 1 diabetes. Vaccines Prevention, growing by over 6%, accelerated their development phase with especially the launch of Beyfortus and their R&D potential, especially with the mRNA platform, where 450 people are working in France and in the U.S. The Consumer Healthcare business is growing by 8.6%, now exceeding EUR 5 billion, and it's come back to a growth level that actively contributes to the group's development. Sanofi's business is not limited to its natural borders.
Sanofi is a lively player in strengthening the healthcare ecosystem, both in France, with its active involvement in the oncology biocluster with Institut Gustave Roussy and Paris-Saclay, or via the action of Foundation S and the group's action to develop access in southern countries, contribute to the eradication of some diseases, and providing 30 more compounds at cost price in Africa. This year, Sanofi is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In 1973, Pierre Guillaumat, who was then the head of Elf Aquitaine, trusted René Sauquet and Jean-François Dehecq with the task of determining a sector that will allow Elf Aquitaine to maintain business in France at the moment of the depletion of the Lacq gas field.
Together, they chose pharmaceuticals, which at the time was a very fragmented field, and I don't think that then they could have imagined that the Sanofi, as it was called back then, could become one of the biggest global pharmaceutical companies. After this general meeting, I will no longer serve as chairman of the board of directors, and I will pass on the torch to Frédéric Oudéa, if you approve his nomination, and if, of course, the board confirms its choice. I would like to testify about the reality of what I experienced during the 13 years during which I had the honor and pleasure of working there, because being chairman of the board is not just being the figurehead, embodying the board. Embodying the board, judgings, rewarding or sanctioning, looking at what it can...
What it is shown actually, the role of the board is, first of all, to shoulder an essential responsibility, the choice of a manager. It is also co-drafting a strategy, deciding on the biggest acquisitions, caring about the long term, more generally, doing its utmost to help the company grow and become stronger. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the board members who, throughout the years, worked tirelessly and were very actively involved in the evolution of Sanofi. I'll come back to it in a minute. I would also like to point out the role of Philippe, our secretary. After 24 years in the group, he's going to retire. He was a very precious companion for me in my role as chairman.
In 2010, when I joined the company, the group had been through a major setback with the withdrawal of Rimonabant two years before, which was going to be one of the blockbusters driving its growth. It was withdrawn from the market. After the time of acquisitions, over 300 of them, the biggest of them being Synthélabo and Aventis, which was the outcome of a merger between Rhône-Poulenc and Hoechst, came the time of harmonization. Size in of itself is not an asset if it's just an addition of scattered entities without any ability to improve the efficiency of the whole. The efficiency of research and development is not proportionate either to the size of the group. It's very often the opposite.
The beginning of the year 2010 lost us EUR 4 billion in sales in just 3 years, nearly 15% of sales, with the expiry of a few patents on some of our flagship products like Lexotan, Plavix, and above all, Lantus, an insulin that had a dominant market share in the care of diabetes. Back then, unfortunately, the pipeline was empty. There were 450 projects, research projects in 2010, and almost none of them culminated in a market launch. Gradually, after choices, not all of which were paid off, it was a difficult journey, and the number of research projects, after having been in overabundance, they were focused under the impulse, the impetus of our then research department. Major acquisitions were made.
Genzyme in 2011 in rare diseases, Bioverativ in 2016, bringing us into hematology, and more recently, a large number of technological platforms, including Ablynx in 2018, and 14 acquisitions since Paul Hudson joined us, providing our researchers with the necessary innovative tools to make bold bets. What's more, the partnership with Regeneron was revitalized. It was a long-standing partner for our group. It led to several products, the biggest of which is now Dupixent. The alliance of biology and technology opened an unheard of realm of possibilities for medical research, and now almost every month there are major breakthroughs. In our group, the percentage of biological products in development went from 20% only in 2010, that was mostly vaccines, to 70% in 2022.
Biotechnology, the advent of cell therapy and gene therapy is opening new spaces, even though for the latter, there is still much to be done to prove their efficacy over the long term and to reduce production costs to make them more affordable. This issue is shared by the whole industry. Sanofi, which was lagging behind, is now ranked amongst the most innovative laboratories again. In 10 years, Sanofi went from the eighth rank to the first rank in terms of success rate when it comes to development of new compounds. A relocation work in terms of therapeutic fields towards first-in-class or best-in-class products was accelerated over the last few years. Sanofi exited R&D and anti-infectious diabetes and cardiovascular fields in order to focus on immunoinflammation, rare diseases, hematology, vaccines, and some areas of oncology.
Now, the percentage of research around products that have good chances of being first-in-class or best-in-class is now 90%. The increased acquisition price of compounds at an advanced stage led us to acquire compounds at an earlier stage and to develop technological platforms. Many acquisitions have been made since 2019 in this area. Synthorx, Principia, Kymera, to name but a few. The effect on the upstream pipeline is now beginning to be felt. Sanofi, I'd like to dwell on this, Sanofi is a French, a European, and a global company, and this is a peculiarity in the pharmaceutical business. It is French because with only 4% of its sales in France, it employs 20% of its headcount, 40% of its industrial footprint, and 35% of its research in this country.
To add other figures, we export EUR 19 billion worth from France. It is also European through its values, especially through its history. One of the striking characteristic features when you join Sanofi is the engagement of the men and women working there, how much they care about their job, whether they are researchers, plant operators, development specialists, people in regulatory, marketing, pharmacovigilance, and now digital. It is also about the utmost professional quality of the men and women who have great experience and talents. When you work at Sanofi, you don't need to ask any questions about our purpose. It is obvious as soon as you join, to improve the health of human beings. Everybody's sensitivity to the importance of their mission, to its essential character, is experienced on a daily basis. We're also European because our vision did not stop at the boundaries of our P&L.
Because we have a history in France, Germany, Italy, in the U.S., in Russia, and China, and Africa, and because all of these small stories that very often started before the creation of Sanofi, have become our history, our know-how, sometimes different, but pulled together, they forge a common ambition at the service of patients. We're also European because we're trying to understand the world without trying to project a single vision on it. We're also European, we're trying to take into account the needs of healthcare systems responsibly, without constantly trying to maximize our own profit all the time. We're also global, this in two ways: first, geographically, because our biggest market is the U.S., our second biggest market is China. These two markets are nothing alike. Each has specific challenges, innovation for one, access to care for the other.
It would be too long to give you a detailed list of the specificities of each of these countries, but the solution is the same: innovate for better care and for the largest number possible. We're also global for another reason. We wanted to stay a diversified group, bringing together activities all focusing on human health, but with different characteristics. This diversity helps invest more and more in research to finance our CapEx and our external growth, while having an extremely robust balance sheet. This gives the group robustness that not all pharmaceutical companies have. I would also add that after the fall of Aubagio's patent this year, we won't have any other patent expiries before 2031, unlike many competitors. Over the last 13 years, the associated governance was put in place for the long term.
This form of governance turned out to be perfectly suited to the group's challenges. The way the board works has become more collegial, with real contribution from every member. The makeup of the board changed to find the skills adapted to the group's challenges, especially pharmaceutical and scientific skills, but also good understanding of large geographical entities like the US of A, China, and we've also developed our skills in terms of corporate social responsibility. Committees have also changed to adapt to challenges with the creation of the scientific committee in 2018, and then we added CSR to the appointments and governance committee in 2019. Finally, and I think that this is of interest for all shareholders, the share price went from EUR 45 in May 2010 to over EUR 100 today, or an increase of 120%.
The share price was also bolstered by steady dividend growth, which went from EUR 2.5 in 2010 to EUR 3.56 in 2021, in 2022, if you approve this decision later, or an increase of 42%. We still have major challenges ahead of us. Carrying on with our efforts in R&D, our raison d'être, to bring more innovative treatments to market and bolster our growth. Although noteworthy progress was achieved, we still have much to do. Keep on improving the efficiency of our organizations. The digital challenge, which was ignored for a long time in this industry, has become key. The use of data and artificial intelligence in research and development, in industry and marketing, are fundamental for our future.
Continue to serve as partner for healthcare systems, not just as a supplier, but to help face the challenges met by all: the longer life expectancy and associated diseases, the effects of crises and pandemic risk, and naturally, the impact of climate change on global health. We'll probably need to change the remuneration of our products based on their efficacy, their measured efficacy. A research company, an industrial company, a commercial company, but also a company serving the common interest. Sanofi is a key player in the global economic and social landscape. Here and now, I would like to thank every single employee who contributed to making this company what it is under the dynamic leadership of Paul Hudson, who breathed in a spirit of renewal into this group, being able to prioritize issues and mobilizing energies.
Finally, I would like to express how happy I am that Frédéric Oudéa is going to succeed me. He's going to be the fourth chairman of Sanofi. He has a sense of values, a real appetite for work, a real courage, and essential determination to shoulder this responsibility. A company like ours cannot be middling, neither in its products nor in its behaviors. It needs to see far ahead to be able sometimes to be detached from the market's short-term vision, so that, like every leader, it can carve its own path in full independence. Ratios do not write adventures, create passions, or lead to success. Processes do not replace intelligence.
By building without ever lowering our standards, by building trust and pride on a daily basis, looking at difficulties in the face, but also by celebrating and sharing successes, that Sanofi is going to accelerate, I am convinced of it, accelerate its successes for the next 50 years. To wrap up, I would like to warmheartedly thank all the men and women of the group, all the Sanofians, for their commitment, their achievements, and their talents, and also you, dear shareholders, for your unwavering support for our group.
I will now continue with the presentation of the changes in governance over the year 2022. First of all, we are going to move to a presentation of the board. If, what is happening? Yes, absolutely.
Here on this slide, you have all of our board, 16 members, plus Frédéric Oudéa, who was appointed as external director last year to ensure an orderly transition so that Frédéric could learn a number of things and understand, and so that there would be no break in the continuity between first term of office and the other. The board is not going to change much this year. If you agree to appoint Frédéric Oudéa as director of the company, there will only be 1 change in directors in 2023. As I mentioned, Frédéric Oudéa will become non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, and at this stage, I would like to give him the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, Mr. Chairman, good afternoon.
It is a very big, a great honor to offer my application to become a director of the Sanofi Group, and if you give me your trust, to request the Board's trust to succeed Serge Weinberg as chairman. Before I say a few words about my professional background and my motivations, allow me to pay tribute to Serge Weinberg, our chairman, for the exceptional work accomplished over his 13 years' chairmanship, and his contribution to the development of Sanofi as one of the champions of the European and global pharmaceutical industry.
I'm happy for him that he was able to reap the fruit of his commitment as a sort of, final fireworks at the end of his term of office, with some spectacular successes of recently announced drugs, a high level of market capitalization for Sanofi, and the celebration of the 50-year anniversary of the company's creation. I would also like to warmly thank him personally for his trust and his help in preparing me as best he could for his succession, and to express how much I look up to him. Let's discuss my professional background. I'm nearly 60, and it's true that, very early had a contact with medical research, because when I was small, I went to the research lab led by my father, a gastroenterologist, and my mother, a pharmacist.
Beyond this anecdotal fact, I started my career in civil service, I worked on the French healthcare system as a technical advisor to the budget minister. I spent 28 years at Société Générale, of which 15 as chairman and CEO. My last term of office ended last Tuesday. I would like to share with you how enthusiastic I am and how motivated I am in opening a new page in my career at the service of Sanofi in such a strategic sector. I think that there are several similarities between the pharmaceutical industry and the banking world. In particular, to name but a few, a very strong impact on our lives and on societies, consequently, a high ethical demand and a demand for social and environmental responsibility.
Sovereignty issues heightened by the fragmentation of today's world, considerable transformations expected because of the advent of digital technology, the use of data, and artificial intelligence. With great humility, I think that with my experience in these areas, I can contribute to the board. What's more, I have strong experience in dissociated governance. I went through the dissociation of the functions of chairman and CEO, imposed by banking regulations in 2015, I'm used to saying that I'm a miracle, I was cut in half, I survived. I'm also a reference shareholder for Capgemini and a shareholder for Société Générale's sustainable mobility affiliate called ALD. I think that with Paul Hudson, our CEO, I can create a very harmonious and effective team, leveraging our complementary experiences.
Rest assured, if you give me your confidence and trust, that I will be fully committed to taking on this function as chairman of the board, constantly working in the best interest of all the stakeholders for this company, especially you, dear shareholders, of course, whilst preserving the highest standards in terms of governance. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Frédéric. Our board is led by independent shareholders. Out of 16 directors.
We have 11 independent directors. We have 43% of women. We have a strong international representation, seven directors out of 16, 44%, and we have two directors representing employees. We also strived to maintain a high level of key skills necessary for Sanofi in the scientific or financial fields, but also in terms of management of large organizations, and we constantly think about what is necessary to add to the team that is this board of directors. Here, I would like to point out the high quality of our teamwork. Our board regularly meets more and more, or is working more and more. In 2022, there were 14 board meetings, or twtwo more than in 2021.
We looked, of course, at all strategic aspects, the progress in the Play to Win strategy, the succession plan for the chairman, the exceptional situations like that generated by the war in Ukraine, many reviews and monitoring of acquisition projects, digital CSR, the IPO of EuroAPI that I was talking about earlier. The attendance rate is high because we're at 97.25% of attendance for all committees. Regarding the committees, I'm not going to explain everything that is happening there, but I would like to point out that the audit committee met one more time than in 2021. It worked on many programs, and it cared specifically about risk. There are more and more diverse risks, especially cyber risk, but also risk related to the effectiveness of information systems, but also precise monitoring of internal risk control and management with the audit department.
The compensation committee, chaired by Patrick Kron, who will, in a minute, share with you the compensation policy. The appointment and nomination committee, chaired by Gilles Schnepp, which has had 6 meetings, one more than last year, than in 2021. It has worked a lot, both on my succession, the evaluation of the board, and CSR, because the 4 pillars of our CSR are examined during a meeting of the nomination committee. The strategic committee, which I chaired, has had a constant activity rate, looking notably at a number of possible acquisitions or strategic evolutions, with also, we have taken stock of exposed acquisition to make sure that our anticipations have been indeed met.
Finally, a scientific committee, which has become much more active, because in 2021 it had three meetings, but six in 2022, with in-depth examinations of a number of areas, notably in the area of therapeutic entities. Finally, two strategic seminars took place at a usual rhythm for our board. All this done in close collaboration with Paul Hudson and with the executive team, the executive committee team, which meets with the board on a regular basis. Regarding the share performance, you know that we always look at that. Here, you see the share performance since January 3rd, 2022. You see the significant progression of Sanofi, much more, in fact, than all of the other peers, pharma in the US, CAC 40, pharma in Europe, with an increase of 11.3% for Sanofi.
Regarding our main peers, since beginning of last year, we are slightly above the average and the median, I think that progressively, based on what we have said, i.e., the readouts for our new products, this evolution should continue. We are therefore proposing to this general meeting to pay a dividend of EUR 3.56, more than last year, but this increase is permanent. As you know, we have had a regular increase in the dividend for more than 20 years. This year, the payout rate in relation to the income has gone down so that we can continue developing our ability to invest and acquire possible companies.
Our share ownership, it has not evolved a lot. Nevertheless, we note a small increase of U.S. and British companies, and a slight reduction in French companies. We note an increase in the number of shares detained by our own employees. In that regard, I would like to underline an important point. Since 2015, we have a regular employee share ownership policy that has allowed Sanofi employees to go from 1.28% to more than 2% today, which represents $2.5 billion. I have to say that I'm really glad to see that the increase in the share price also benefit all of the employees, whereas this was not the case 10 years ago.
So much for what I wanted to tell you before I give the floor to Patrick Kron, the president of our compensation policy, who's going to tell us about the corporate officers.
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, good afternoon. As every day, I'd like to report on the activity of the Compensation Committee. More specifically, I would like to deal with the aspects related to the compensation of directors and corporate officers. Those elements are detailed in corporate governance of our registration document. It is also included in the draft resolutions between five and 11.
The slide 18 you have in front of you shows that the fees paid in 2022 have taken up all of the envelope of EUR 2 million, given the increase in the number of meetings for the board and the different committees and the physical presence of foreign directors. It is proposed today, and this is a resolution, to increase the amount by EUR 2.5 million and of the envelope for director compensation, given that the compensation system, be it for the fixed and variable compensation related to actual participation, will not be changed and remains unchanged.
In the following slides, you see the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors, which includes an annual fixed compensation of EUR 800,000, same level for 2023, until the end of the mandate of Mr. Weinberg. We also propose to fix that EUR 80,000, the future remuneration as of May 26. This remuneration of the Chairman is not subject to annual review. It is being reviewed after a number of years. In slide 21 and 22. The next slide, sorry. Slide 22, you see the different elements in the compensation of the CEO, where you have a fixed compensation, a annual variable compensation, and an equity-based compensation based on performance shares, the acquisition of which is based on presence and performance conditions over a period.
We would like to recall also the provisions applicable after the mandate, a termination benefit in the event of forced departure. There's also a supplementary defined contribution pension plan, subject to the fulfillment of the performance conditions. Finally, the possibility given to the company to provide for a non-compete undertaking if the CEO leaves. We would like to adjust the compensation policy. First, we're going to publish, in a more detailed manner, the different elements of the variable compensation. How is it that we calculate the bonus? That's a request by several shareholders. Of course, there's an absolute limitation, which is the secret of business. We don't want to publish some objectives that could give you information about the objectives of the company. That could be detrimental to the company.
Secondly, we would like to integrate a criteria related to CSR in the conditions related to performance shares. Until now, the attribution of those shares was related to financial criteria. We would like to add to those financial criteria, a number of CSR criteria regarding access to drugs and impact on the climate. Those criteria, of course, will be perfectly quantified. In keeping with the U.S. legislation, we will consider a clawback policy in case of accounting irregularity, and the board of directors will look at that, and I am sure that this will never be used. Next slide. Slide 24. You have here the compensation elements for Mr. Hudson in 2022. Fixed compensation, EUR 1.4 million.
A variable compensation of about EUR 2.35 million, according to a calculation I will detail in a moment. Performance shares allocated in 2022, whose calculation was made on the basis of a three-year period in 2020, on the basis of a three-year period, which gives an allocation rate of 87% of the initial envelope, given the partial reuse of performance conditions corresponding to the value indicated in this slide. Finally, the supplementary pension plan related to performance conditions, and finally, benefits in kind.
Regarding the variable compensation in 2022, it was calculated in a very fine manner, according to the criteria indicated here, i.e., half of which are financial objectives related to growth in sales, the free cash flow, BOI margin, but also a number of elements related to the marketing of new assets, and also what we call individual objectives for an important part, quantified according to the four directions indicated on this slide. The accomplishment, the attainment rate was 111.3%, which gives, if we explain, apply this to the target bonus of 150% of the variable compensation, that is, a compensation that gives you the figure you see for variable compensation. In the next slide, you have the different compensation element of Mr. Hudson for 2023.
The board of directors have decided to maintain at EUR 1.4 million his fixed remuneration adjustment in 2022 to keep the same variable compensation structure, half of which will be financial objectives, which you see here behind me, and half of which will be specific individual objectives. Once again, an important number is quantified. The board of directors would like to allocate in 2023, 82,500 performance shares, totally submitted to internal performance criteria and internal criteria comparison with a panel of comparable companies. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, those are the elements I wanted to present to give you information about resolutions 5 to 11. I'd like to thank you. Merci.
Thank you very much, Patrick.
Before I give the floor to Paul Hudson, who is going to tell you about the implementation of our strategy, our activities, and R&D, before that, we would like to show you a video that tells you about Sanofi since 1973.
... Good question. Sanofi
On se sent tous engagés.
L'histoire de Sanofi, c'est un voyage dans le temps de la science et de l'industrie pharmaceutique, car la marque Sanofi a 50 ans, mais ses racines remontent à 1718. Aujourd'hui, leader international, Sanofi reste le plus jeune des grands groupes pharmaceutiques.
Le plus jeune, peut-être, mais avec l'ambition de devenir le meilleur.
Comme depuis le premier jour, Sanofi invente son avenir en se projetant vers tout ce qu'il nous reste à découvrir pour améliorer la vie des gens.
Bonjour à toutes et à tous. Good afternoon, everyone. I am delighted to meet with you today here at the Palais des Congrès. I look forward to exchanging with you and take your questions. We're less than a kilometer away from Maison Sanofi, which is the new headquarters of this company. The Maison, the house, is a symbol of the Sanofi we want to become. That is a modern, inclusive Sanofi, open to the world. A Sanofi whose heart beats in France, but which radiates around the world, and a Sanofi which will be reinventing itself over the next 50 years. While our company has a significant track record of the past 50 years, it has mostly a beautiful future. I believe that the year 2023 will be a turning point in our strategy.
Last year, we successfully completed stage one of our Play to Win strategy. As you will be able to see in my presentation, we've made significant progress. The momentum of our pipeline is excellent, beyond our expectations. All the drugs and vaccines that we are developing for the future may well turn around the practice of medicine. This year, we'll be launching two products in hemophilia and bronchiolitis. These products will make a major difference for patients and public health. We also want to make a positive difference for society as a whole. We are stepping up our partnership with the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which will enable a large number of Sanofi employees to take part in this incredible event. I'm very proud of the work conducted by all the Sanofi teams in France and around the world.
I would like to thank them for all their fine efforts. If you allow me, I will now continue in English. Thank you very much. Let's hope my French wasn't translated to French by the translators. When we launched our Play to Win strategy three and a half years ago, we knew we were setting the bar high. Today, I can say I'm incredibly proud of the progress that we've made. We said we would deliver, and we did. In a short period of time and in the midst of a global pandemic, we've been able to achieve in three years what has taken many other companies of our size, decades. We've reached 10 consecutive quarters of growth, a first in Sanofi's recent history.
The clear goals we set, reinvesting in R&D and growth drivers, building out our pipeline and portfolio, has put us ahead of the schedule as we launch phase II of our strategy. With our strong financial performance, our breakthrough scientific achievements, and our renewed commitment to society, we are on track to becoming the modern healthcare company we aspire to be. Looking a bit more closely at our 2022 performance, we ended the year on a high note with outstanding commercial performance, also marking the first year we exceeded EUR 40 billion in sales. For the first time, Specialty Care delivered the highest sales amongst our businesses. For the full year, fueled by Dupixent and rare diseases. In vaccines, we maintained our leadership in flu, while quickly gaining momentum as a pediatric vaccines company of choice.
The reinvention of our general medicines and consumer health businesses paid off, thanks to our prioritization of key franchises and assets. I like to think of 2022 as an inflection point in our transformation journey, setting us up for a steady state cadence we envisioned for the new Sanofi. Pardon. This inflection point is also reflected in the scientific progress we made throughout the year. We want to be scientific leaders, not followers. Our scientific achievements in 2022 prove that our strategy to reinvest in our pipeline and prioritize first and best is working. I'd mention here the 9 publications in the leading medical journals. This underscores our growing scientific credibility. 5 priority assets also received expedited regulatory review, signaling the evolution of our portfolio from me-too lates to those with potential to shift treatment paradigms and transform lives.
Now turning to 2023. The next phase of our strategy kicked off with the launch of two best-in-class treatments that have the potential to shift the standard of care in hemophilia A and the prevention of RSV in all infants. These two assets have been prioritized back in December of 2019, and we're very proud to be being able to now bring them forward to those who need them. On the clinical data front, we've already had first-of-their-kind positive data for Dupixent and COPD. In addition to the anticipated phase III data for tolebrutinib in multiple sclerosis, we have 27 readouts still to come from our early pipeline or mid-stage pipelines. Let me share some additional color on all of these important milestones.
ALTUVIIIO, our best-in-class medicine for hemophilia A, has been approved and launched in the United States. Our teams are engaging other regulatory agencies across the world. We have already received excellent feedback from physicians. More importantly, from patients. ALTUVIIIO represents another innovation that underscores our mission to help transform the practice of medicine. It is the first treatment that delivers normal to near normal factor levels. Simply put, prevention of bleeds and significant bleed protection in a once-weekly dose. Now, turning to our second best-in-class launch this year, Beyfortus. After 50 years of research, we're incredibly proud to chart a new course in RSV protection. Beyfortus is the only immunization that has shown potential to protect all infants against RSV before they leave the hospital.
RSV is the leading cause of hospitalization in all infants. This winter saw higher rates of RSV-related infant hospitalizations than during the pandemic or the pre-pandemic years. We have recently shared data demonstrating the real-world impact of Beyfortus, with 83% reduction in hospitalizations. In other words, we could potentially avoid 8 out of 10 hospitalizations if all newborns received protection against RSV. This perfectly illustrates the importance of our solution for all infants and their families, but also for public health and the sustainability of healthcare systems. All of our teams are working diligently with regulatory and health authorities to launch Beyfortus in time for the 2023 season, including, importantly, here in France. Switching now to our scientific pipeline, we've made significant progress in immunology over the past years, thanks to the success of Dupixent.
We're charting a new course, but building on the knowledge we've gained from Dupixent. We've expanded our pipeline to potentially help millions more patients with other types of inflammatory diseases such as asthma, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, to name but a few. Merci. Our scientific strategy is built around a world-class team of experts, exploring disruptive mechanisms that have the potential to be best-in-class by breaking efficacy ceilings. With 12 molecules across key inflammatory disease areas, we're laying down the foundation today for our ambition to be the industry leader for the next 25 years. Dupixent is the backbone of our immunology leadership and will continue to be in the coming decade. This medicine continues to deliver with an efficacy and safety profile that is yet to be beat by another biologic in its class.
We announced in April the much-anticipated results from a first phase III trial in COPD, achieving clinical outcomes never seen with a biologic or with any other investigational treatment for this disease. Not a very well-known fact, COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide, and tragically, only 1 in 3 people who enter the hospital due to a COPD exacerbation sadly do not come out alive. Our clinical data were presented last week at one of the most prestigious medical congress in the United States, and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Beyond Dupixent, we are developing with our partner, Regeneron, a second uniquely targeted therapy with itolizumab. Together, these two molecules have the potential to address more than 80% of the COPD patient population, which accounts for approximately 2 million patients in the G7 countries alone.
Our late-stage immunology pipeline is also delivering, and so starts some of our exciting early-stage programs. Two of our promising molecules have the potential to disrupt current standard of care and transform the lives of millions of patients. We've just presented proof-of-mechanism data for an asset in asthma. These data are the first report of a novel biologic targeting both TSLP and IL-13 pathways. Similarly, we have exciting early-stage data in an oral TNF inhibitor that could potentially aim at biologic-like efficacy, but with the convenience of being oral, a real paradigm shift for patients. We're advancing these molecules in ambitious phase II clinical programs. These two assets perfectly illustrate our ambition to take shots and do scientific things that have never been done before across our industry.
Moving from immunology to neurology, we're also building a strong pipeline with diverse clinical programs focused on the next wave of potential disease-modifying treatments for different forms of multiple sclerosis. Tolebrutinib, currently in phase III trials, targets the enzyme BTK, which plays a role in immune activities on both sides of the blood-brain barrier. Crossing the blood-brain barrier could potentially address disability progression for people living with MS. Two additional first-in-class or best-in-class assets with different mechanisms of actions are currently in phase II. More than 2 million people across the world live with multiple sclerosis. Thanks to Aubagio, we have a global presence and established expertise in the community that provides us with a strong foundation for further discovery and development in this field. Our science is also moving full speed ahead in vaccines.
Building on our strong legacy, we are advancing quickly to strengthen our leadership by adding mRNA to our broad set of technology platforms. In less than two years, we have built and put into motion something unique with an in-house proprietary mRNA center of excellence. 450 talented people, co-located across France and the U.S., operate as an agile biotech center within the Sanofi powerhouse. We are investing at full speed across the value chain to develop Sanofi's best-in-class, end-to-end mRNA platform. We are well on track with our ambition to move 10 vaccine candidates into the clinic by 2025, 6 of them using mRNA technologies. We've just never reached such a pace in vaccines R&D before.
A broader update will soon be presented in the investor event, where we'll share more data around our progress in RSV and influenza mRNA-based vaccines, as well as pneumococcal and meningococcal vaccines. Finally, with the acquisition of Provention Bio, we have recently added another first-in-class potential blockbuster to our diabetes portfolio. TZIELD, already approved in the United States, can bring life-changing benefits to people at risk of developing Stage three Type 1 diabetes, particularly young people. Because for the first time, we can disrupt the autoimmune attack, delaying the need for insulin treatment for almost three years. This means kids can focus on being kids, not on their glucose levels. TZIELD will quickly benefit from our deep expertise in diabetes care and built-in prescriber network, as well as our ability to scale and resource globally, reaching patients outside of the United States.
More broadly, it complements our strategic shift to developing transformative therapies for immune-mediated diseases with high unmet need. In summary, all of the progress we are making on the commercial and scientific sides allow us to look at the long-term future of Sanofi with bold ambitions driving us to the end of the decade. We've set out two very clear ambitious targets for our Immunology and Vaccine businesses. Thanks to our industry-leading pipeline, we aim to be an industry, if not the industry leader in immunology, with more than EUR 22 billion in sales by 2030. We also committed to double our vaccine sales by the end of the decade. More broadly, we have set what we think should be the new normal for a science-driven company like us, with the ambition to launch three to five new products with EUR 2 billion- EUR 5 billion peak sales.
It's also important to consider that we are in a unique position, certainly compared to our competitors, with a portfolio uncompromised by a meaningful loss of exclusivity for the remainder of this decade. As we make progress with our commercial and scientific agendas, we also double down on our commitment to society. I wanted to close this presentation by sharing some of the progress of our social impact strategy. You'll hear shortly from Sandrine, our Global Head of CSR, on some of our climate commitments. As we embed CSR into our business strategy, we're also pressing ahead with some bold moves that make us stand out from our peers. Last year, we created Foundation S, our new philanthropic platform, whose ambition is to create healthier futures for generations to come.
In addition to the assistance provided to people during times of crises through humanitarian aid and medicine donations, we have identified three commitment areas where we intend to make a big difference: reduce childhood cancer, supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and eliminate sleeping sickness. In parallel, we also make good progress with Sanofi Global Health, our pioneering nonprofit and sustainable social business model. Through our Impact brand, we have set the goal of reaching 2 million people by 2030 in 40 of the poorest countries with the highest unmet medical need. We're also focused on strengthening healthcare infrastructures with capacity-building initiatives, local partnerships, and through a dedicated impact investment fund, supporting startups and innovators who deliver scalable, sustainable healthcare solutions in underserved regions.
Earlier this year, we kicked off an initiative aimed at building bridges of trust between underrepresented communities and healthcare stakeholders. The initiative, named A Million Conversations, comes in response to a global survey we conducted last year that revealed how an alarming number of people from marginalized communities have had challenging experiences and a lack of understanding with healthcare providers. Such negative experiences creates what we call a trust gap. We'll be deploying a EUR 50 million investment by 2030 to empower people from these communities to speak directly to the healthcare industry and to grow a pipeline of diverse healthcare professionals. We have a lot to learn ourselves on this journey, and we hope others will join us in this initiative to help drive sustainable change in healthcare systems. Last, I would like to mention our pride to be a partner to the upcoming Paris 2024 Games.
Before sharing more about our partnership, because a picture, or at least in this case, a video, is worth 1,000 words, let's take one minute to watch our campaign video.
You've always been told you have potential, but it's not enough to just have it. You need to feel it. It takes time, sweat, and tears, some wins, big wins. It takes a we never settle attitude. It takes work, teamwork, hard work. Repeat, repeat, and repeat. To be shaken, to be awakened, to test your limits, overcome your fear of failure. It's a step closer to success. Look closely at the possibilities. Keep pushing your mind and body, whether you're on the tracks, in the labs, or in midair. Find your potential. Ignite it.
As you saw, the links between sports and science are clear. An athlete's journey to the games doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, determination, and courage. The same applies to the work that goes into turning a scientific discovery into a breakthrough medicine. The games are one of the most significant events on our planet. We think it is a unique opportunity to unify all of our employees globally and in France. Our journey with the games goes along with the culture change we drive to drive it across our organization and our ambition to be a more inclusive company. We have teamed up with a group of inspiring Olympic and Paralympic Igniters who, beyond their athleticism, are also creating positive change in our world by speaking up about societal issues.
We are organizing our own internal Olympiads to encourage our employees to practice sport and to get involved in volunteering activities. Many Sanofians will also play a direct role in the organization of the games. Our internal call encouraged 11,000 of our people to apply to be Sanofi volunteers to the games. 2,024 of them were selected, making Sanofi the partner that will provide Paris '2024 with the largest cohort of volunteers. The commitment of all of our Sanofi teams in the partnership with Paris 2024 exemplifies their incredible sense of purpose. I would like to thank all of them because this sense of purpose is also what enabled us to have already come a long way in a short period of time. 2023 will be a pivotal year in solidifying our ambition to be a leading modern healthcare company.
We are committed to that ambition and staying focused on accelerating our purpose in chasing the miracles of science, scientifically, digitally, culturally, to improve people's lives. Finally, I'd like to take a moment to warmly thank Serge Weinberg for his leadership, mentorship, companionship, and the fact that he's been alongside me without hesitation for the past nearly four years. As you've seen in my presentation, you've heard a little bit in his and others, he leaves the company in a strong position and with a very bright future. I wish Serge, professionally, of course, but personally, the very best in his future endeavors. I look forward to working and partnering closely with Frédéric Oudéa to take us to the next level. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Paul. Now, I will leave the floor to... Oh, sorry. Pardon, excusez-moi. I'm sorry, I'm so used to using English. Well, now I would like to give the floor to Audrey Derveloy, who is the head of Sanofi France, to tell us about the company in its home country. Over to you, Audrey.
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, it's above all a huge pleasure, and I'm absolutely delighted and honored to be with you today. I joined Sanofi 9 months ago as head of Sanofi France. From day 1, I've been extremely impressed by the commitment and the sense of duty of all Sanofians with whom I'm lucky to work on a daily basis. These first few months also allowed me to understand and grasp and appreciate the key role of Sanofi in France for the success of Sanofi in the world. Our modernization efforts and the ambitious initiatives that we are rolling out on this territory are essential to make France a pillar of excellence that will have a global reputation over the long term. I'd like to show you 5 projects, 5 initiatives.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it's evidence of the dynamism and commitment of Sanofi in France, for patients, of course, but also for the employment of young people or also environmental responsibility. First of all, in the area of research, to bring medicine forward and bring new solutions to patients. We are a leading partner for research ecosystems, thanks to our agreements with academia, with clinical research, all through our support to French biotechs. A recent example that we're very proud of is the creation of the Paris-Saclay Cancer Cluster in February 2022, with great partners like Gustave Roussy, Université Paris-Saclay, Institut Polytechnique, and Inserm. This is the first bio cluster that won the France Innovation 2030 plan contest, launched by the French government. The aim of the PSCC is to help a French onco cluster emerge.
It is based on our belief that France has unique assets that allow it to compete with the best in oncology on the global level. The PSCC is a great opportunity for Sanofi to create an open, innovative, and multidisciplinary approach with the best scientific players. This open innovation approach is also what's led us to create, with other partners, a unique structure in France and Europe, Future for Care. Future for Care is, above all, a forum of innovation, the aim of which is to accelerate the scale-up of European startups in e-health to industrialize them. So far, over 37 startups have been supported since 2021. Future for Care, therefore, allows startups to benefit from personalized support.
This unique initiative helps Sanofi to become a driving force for a sector that is going to play a major role for the future of healthcare in France. Our commitment in France is strong in the scientific and technological ecosystems, it's also very strong on the societal level, with a desire to pass skills on. That's very dear to all of our employees. This is, for instance, the case for the mentorship of young people. For 2023, over 1,600 work study plans or internships on all Sanofi sites were offered in France, including 10% for candidates for specific priority neighborhoods, this program is called Place d'Avenir, and it's part of the One Young Person, One Solution governmental plan. In three years, it's become an emblematic and iconic event for Sanofi in France.
The aim of Place d'Avenir is to reveal the potential of all talents and to fight against young people's self-censorship, especially in priority areas and with young people with disability. Paris, for the 2023 edition, we can also leverage our partnership with Paris 2024, with unique mental coaching given by athletes that we support. The modernization of Sanofi France also goes through major investments in the modernization of our industrial footprint. This is an essential dimension to stay at the bleeding edge of global innovation. Two major projects are making great strides, and we are very proud of them. The evolutive facility of Neuville-sur-Saône, near Lyon, has broken ground, and we are now accelerating its implementation. This is the first ultra-innovative factory of this type in of the world that will help produce simultaneously various vaccines and biological treatments, especially using messenger RNA.
With its modularity, it could play a major role for France and Europe in the fight against pandemics. Another example, in the next few months, we are going to open our small volume launch unit in Sisteron. This investment, announced in 2021, is a major asset in the area of chemistry, the aim of which is to anticipate the launch of new pharmaceutical ingredients. It will bring to the sites a unique industrial equipment to meet the challenges of the future, while developing processes with a smaller environmental impact and a less energy consumption. Indeed, we are committed for the environment and committed to reducing the carbon footprint of our industrial sites in France. To date, all Sanofi sites in France are already powered by 100% renewable electricity, which makes France a global leader within Sanofi worldwide. We want to go further.
Our sites of Saint-Loubès, Ambarès, and Aramon have been producing solar electricity for a few years now on a very small scale that is reinjected into the grid. We are now going to scale up with the installation of solar farms on larger surfaces. I was lucky and proud a few weeks ago to open a PV solar farm in Montpellier of 3.3 hectares, that will produce renewable electricity, fully self-consumed by the site, and this is roughly the consumption of a city, of a town of 4,000 inhabitants. A similar setup will soon be located on our Aramon site. To conclude, Sanofi's commitment in France is manifold.
It's rich with initiatives that, on a daily basis, help us build the Sanofi of the next 50 years and turn it into an industrial flagship in France that is recognized as the best company in biopharmacy throughout the world. Thank you.
Merci, Audrey. Thank you, Audrey. I will now give the floor to Sandrine Bouttier-Streiff, who will tell us more about the progress achieved in 2022 in terms of societal commitments.
... Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, Mr. Chairman, in 2021, Sanofi renewed its societal commitments to make them more ambitious and integrated in the Play to Win strategy. Based on four pillars: access to health, innovation for vulnerable populations, preservation of the planet, and diversity, inclusion, and engagement with the communities. These aren't just ambitions, but concrete actions for which we've made progress. Paul and Audrey mentioned a few of these concrete achievements in 2022. As we follow this journey as a responsible and committed company, we take on board the social, societal and environmental concerns in our activities, and we take up the transformation challenges for tomorrow, whilst relying on robust governance. A committed company is also a company that contributes to taking up the challenges that the world's facing. The successive crises that we're going through undeniably reveal our vulnerabilities.
The first of them is climate change. It is one of the biggest challenges and the biggest threat for human health. Its effects on populations, exacerbated by climate injustice, are only spreading throughout the world, are moving into an uncontrollable spiral with many collateral social and societal effects. In 2022, 31 million climate refugees were counted. The prevalence of diseases like infectious diseases, but also allergies, asthma, and other respiratory diseases, is growing. Roughly 250,000 extra deaths per year will be expected between 2030 and 2050. What's more, climate change is fragilizing essential healthcare infrastructure like hospitals, but also healthcare systems. The connection between health and climate no longer needs to be proven.
As a response, we've adopted a holistic and unique climate strategy that combines mitigation, resilience, and adaptation, and covers both our activities, our products, healthcare systems, our patients, and vulnerable populations. These are a few elements of those. Paris in 2015, Sanofi was the only and first pharmaceutical company committed in a climate COP, COP21. Back then already, we were warning about the connections between health and climate change. We made a commitment to become carbon neutral, aligning on the Paris Agreement. In 2022, we decided to accelerate our commitments to tend towards carbon neutrality by 2030, and zero net emissions in 2020, 2045, bringing our agenda by 5 years. These commitments, validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative, is evidence of our desire to be part of a more rigorous and multi-annual monitored action plan.
The aim is to reduce our emissions to the maximum. Since 2019, we've reduced our direct emission Scope one and two, by 29%. This is the outcome of our actions on energy efficiency, but also with a more intensive use of renewable energies, whether they are bought or produced on our sites. Right now, in the world, 62% of the electricity that we use is of renewable energy, and the aim is to reach 100% by 2030. We're also working on avoiding emissions during the design of new activities or sites, such as the Evolutive Vaccine Facility in Singapore. Regarding our indirect emissions, the largest amount of which is related to the procurement of raw materials, we've reduced emissions by 7% since 2019. To do so, we've drawn up a support plan for our suppliers in the decarbonization of their activities.
For instance, the Energize plan, where we are associated with nine other pharmaceutical companies, helps us help our shared supply chains to switch to renewables. We're also working on anticipating the impact that global warming is going to have or might have on our activities. We've regularly examined and updated the list of climate risks and opportunities like extreme weather events, the prevalence of diseases. Because we are taking the subject very seriously, the climate risk is now amongst our group risk mapping. We're also abiding by the highest standards in terms of climate reporting. Two years ahead of schedule, we've published the elements related to the European taxonomy called Green Taxonomy. The members of the board and the members of the executive board are mobilized around this global challenge. They are supporting the strategy that we're adopting.
The climate emergency also invites us to project ourselves into topics that go beyond the limits, the boundaries of our traditional activities. The planet needs much more than individual contributions, we need to address issues at a more global level, starting with, for us, with healthcare systems. They are responsible for roughly 5% of global emissions. Healthcare systems were a country, they would be the 5th largest emitter in the world. Among these emissions, 50% are due to products and supply chains, I've talked about that for Sanofi, 5% for research and development, and 45% for care journeys for patients, including healthcare facilities and direct emissions of patients. This theme, specifically, Sanofi positioned itself as a leader.
We are a founding partner of the Global Initiative to Decarbonize Healthcare Systems, and we are managing more specifically, the working group on the decarbonization of patient journeys. Through our work, our ambition is to create new sectoral momentum by offering levers for action to help healthcare systems transform the way they deliver care, and to prepare their resilience to climate change, and to have emissions assessment tools in order to help and guide decision making. We already know that prevention and digitalization are levers for improvements. These elements were all presented by Paul at COP27. Because it is urgent to take action, and because we want to pave the way, Sanofi has already started studies to rethink the way that healthcare could be delivered in the future by relying on our products and digital solutions.
Of course, whilst putting patients as a priority at the center of our thinking. It's also important to create the success conditions for the decarbonization of healthcare systems by mobilizing all stakeholders, so that collectively, we can drive change sustainably. Pharmaceutical companies, healthcare authorities, payers, regulators, policymakers, and also, of course, patients. Using our international positioning, we're playing a leading role in the commitment of these stakeholders worldwide. Finally, with the launch of Foundation S in 2022, our field of action is going further. We are supporting, via this foundation, climate adaptation programs via targeted investment to help communities prevent, protect themselves, and resist the inevitable effects of climate change. For instance, we are financing a hospital boat in Bangladesh to allow remote population to have access to care, whereas areas have become inaccessible because of overly repeated monsoons.
The foundation is also positioned as an agitator to guide global financing towards climate resilience of populations. Adopting a holistic, integrated, and transdisciplinary approach is one of the most promising prospects to take up the environmental and health challenges of the future without opposing patients and planet. Via our climate commitment, we are proving our ability to rethink our models, but also to take commitments above and beyond our own activities, above and beyond our own value chain, because transforming patients' lives is also contributing to improving the society in which they live. This is a commitment of the whole of Sanofi to meet today's challenges and tomorrow's challenges, and to raise the level of societal ambition so that we can do what we do best, but even more. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Sandrine. Major efforts are being made within the company.
Now, I will give the floor to Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon, who is going to talk about the company's performance.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, our financial performance in 2022 was once again sustained. Earnings per share from business grew by 17.1% at constant Forex, or a slightly higher level than the prospects announced for growth of roughly 16%. Sales grew by 7% at constant Forex to EUR 43 billion. As you know, in December 2019, we communicated a twofold objective for 2022. On the one hand, EUR 2.5 billion in cost savings, and on the other hand, a business operating margin of 30%. Well, we've reached these 2 goals. Cost savings in 2022 reached EUR 2.7 billion, a higher level than our goal.
These savings were, for the most part, reinvested into our growth drivers and our key R&D programs, in line with our strategy. Business operating margin in 2022 reached 30.3% and 30% at constant Forex, or a 540 points improvement compared to the level of 2018 on a published basis, restated for the disposal of the stake in General. Our tax rate is in line with the expectations, the earnings per share goal was exceeded, this year, we are proposing a dividend growth of 6.9%, as was explained by the president. Our business in 2022 was split in three segments: pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and consumer healthcare.
In pharmaceuticals, business growth was 6.9%, mostly driven by Specialty Care, reflecting the strong performance of Dupixent. The lower business for general medicines is due to the decline in sales from non-strategic products, due to product disposals in line with the Play to Win strategy and the deconsolidation of EUROAPI , starting from May. Strategic products in general medicines grew by 5.2%. The performance in our vaccine activity was 6.3%, bolstered by the recovery of booster vaccines and travel vaccines in a post-pandemic environment. Our flu vaccines reached a new record level in 2022, with sales of around EUR 3 billion, the 8.6% growth in our consumer healthcare business reflected the double-digit growth in the categories cough and cold, digestive health, and allergy, which mostly offset the disposal of non-strategic brands.
Moving on to the P&L, our net business operating income grew by 17% constant Forex, more than revenues, which grew by 7%. Our gross margin rate grew by 2.4 points to 73.7%, reflecting a favorable product mix related to Specialty Care, also because of industrial productivity gains. Our business income or operating income grew by 13.3% at constant Forex because of an improved gross margin and also contained growth in SG&A, reflecting our operating efficiency. Our business operating income also reflected the reallocation of resources in our growth drivers and key R&D projects in line with our strategy. Our R&D efforts grew significantly by 12.3% in 2022 to reach EUR 6.7 billion.
Our CapEx reached a high level at EUR 1.6 billion in 2022, reflecting the continuation of our efforts in the production of biologics in pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Moving on to the IFRS net consolidated earnings. IFRS net consolidated earnings reached EUR 8,371 million in 2022, an increase of 34.5%. Going from the net operating income in 2022 of EUR 10,341 million to the net consolidated IFRS income of EUR 8,371 million, is mostly related to the depreciation of goodwill on past acquisitions, especially Genzyme, Bioverativ, Boehringer Ingelheim , Consumer Healthcare, Ablynx, and Kadmon.
Net impairment of goodwill, reflecting two elements: an impairment of EUR 1,586 million related to non-alpha Interleukin-2 because of delays in the launch calendar, and an impairment reversal of EUR 2,154 million because of the approval of ALTUVIIIO in the U.S., which improved the asset's value. Payments of EUR 951 million received from Regeneron due to the collaboration and license risk agreement in immuno-oncology, the restructuring costs related to simplification initiatives, and of course, the tax impact of these elements. Our balance sheet on the 31st December 2022 is very robust. We have equity for a value of EUR 75 billion.
Our net financial debt at the end of 2022 reached EUR 6.4 billion, down by EUR 3.6 billion, thanks to the high amount of free cash flow generated. Our free cash flow reached EUR 8,483 million in 2022, up 4.8% compared to 2021, bolstered by the increase in our BOI. As you know, we've more than doubled our free cash flow since 2018 and exceeded our goal announced in December 2019, of a growth of 50% of our free cash flow in 2022 compared to 2018. We published very good results for Q1 2023 on April 27.
In Q1 2023, sales were EUR 10,222 million, up 5.7% on a published basis and 5.5% at constant Forex. This growth was due to the continued strong performance of Dupixent and the vaccine and consumer healthcare businesses. Earnings per share from business in Q1 grew by 11.3% on a published basis and 11.9% at constant Forex. For 2023, we announced a goal of business EPS in a low single-digit range. This reflects robust growth from our growth drivers, but also the expected loss of exclusivity of Aubagio in the US last March. Given the foreign exchange levels in April, we're expecting a Forex impact on our business EPS in 2023 to be between -5.5% and -6.5%.
As you can see, we are confident about the quality of our results and the prospects for our activities. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Jean-Baptiste. I'm now going to give the floor to Mrs. Anne-Claire Ferrié from PricewaterhouseCoopers, to represent the College of Statutory Auditors, who's going to present their report.
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the joint Statutory Auditors, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers, I'm pleased to report to you on the completion of our engagement entrusted to us for 2022, and to present the different reports we have issued in the context of this combined shareholder meetings, for you to exercise your judgment when voting on the resolutions. Notably, a report on the parent and consolidated financial statement, our special report on related party agreements, and various reports in relation to transactions which could have an impact on the share capital of your company. I'd like to summarize the main point of the reports and our findings. Regarding our reports on the financial statements, you can find them on pages.
... 185 and 297 of the universal registration document. We've issued a non-qualified opinion on the financial statement of Sanofi SA and on the group's consolidated financial statements. You will find the key points of the orders, the points that have required a specific attention due to their nature, their relative significance to the financial statement or the significant degree of judgment required in assessing the assumptions and estimates. There are four key audit matters. First, the measurement of other intangible assets that amount to EUR 22 billion. The rebates and price reductions granted in the U.S. Also, the product liability risk and litigation faced by the group. Finally, the tax risks related to the group's operations.
Regarding the parent company financial statements, the key audit matter is related to the measurement of investment, amounting to EUR 84 billion in the balance sheet total assets. We explain in our reports, the risks associated with these key matters, as well as a description of the work that has been performed. Regarding our report on related party agreements, you will find it on page 300 of the URD. We indicate that we have informed of no related party agreement, whose execution could have had effect on the fiscal year. Finally, regarding the various reports required by the law in resolution 15 to 18, 20, 21, 23, that you will have to vote on. We have detailed this information in the report.
Those operation concern a share capital reduction, the issuance of shares or securities, giving access to the share capital of the company with shareholders preferential rights, and the increase of capital for employees. This is part of the law, and all of the information required for you to appreciate the impact has been brought to your attention. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Madame Ferrié. Before we open the debate with the shareholders, we can have a look at the written questions. We have received three batches of questions, three from the Forum of Responsible Investment. The answers to these questions have been published on our website, in keeping with regulations.
The company has also received a number of electronic questions we're going to answer in a minute, after what, we will answer your other questions directly. Philippe, can you read the questions and answers that were asked?
Yes, as the chairman said, we have received 3 electronic questions, one coming from Nicolas Assier, May 23. I'm asking myself a question, the strategy that consists in focusing on innovative products to have more than 30% profitability with a possible carve out of CHC. Don't you think this is risky? Don't you think that we should keep diversification with low growth products that are less risky? The answer of management is the following, the unmet medical needs are very numerous, and our mission as a pharma company is to provide patients with innovative products.
Our Play to Win strategy was implemented to stimulate innovation and growth, in order to make decisive progress with increasingly promising drugs in the portfolio to answer a lot of unmet medical needs. In general medicine, Sanofi has chosen to focus mainly on products that have a differentiated or established profile, and that have a significant growth potential on essential markets. Which does not mean that we're not going to seize opportunity like Kadmon or Provention Bio. The implementation of CHC has continued in 2022, which has accelerated the growth and will allow us to seize opportunities. Sanofi's ambition is a strong and sustainable growth based on a diversified portfolio. The second question includes two part, is from Mr. Dominique Courtois, May 16, 2023. First part, what about the vaccine against AIDS?
Why don't we have advertising about anti-COVID booster? First part of the question, Sanofi does not have a vaccine against AIDS in its R&D portfolio. Regarding the second part of the question, the booster, the COVID booster is a pandemic vaccine, and the French regulation is very specific about it, which prevents us to promote it, be it for health professional or for the general public. Regarding the information you find on the internet, only public bodies like Amélie can do that. HAS, sante.gouv.fr, ansm.fr, the pharma companies are not allowed to do such advertising. The third question is from Mr. Jacques Monot, May 17, 2023. Let me read the question. I find the presentation of performance based on EPS is not good. We always have a reconciliation between IFRS.
I think that, the IFRS, are very demanding. Most of the items in this reconciliation should be considered as operational and be included in the ROI. First, the restructuring costs are recurring and not exceptional. The acquisition of products or rights, not yet marketed, is also something that is recurring. It has become part and parcel of the normal activity. Therefore, the amortization and depreciation of intangibles should be considered as operational research expenditure and be part of the ROA. Not including that figure means that you overestimate the performance of activity, and you include in it significant expenditures. I was struck by the communication of results in Q4 last February.
On the third, we had had an increase of 25% in your figure, the IFRS only increased by 8% since the provision on ALTUVIIIO was taken, which means that we have more comparable evolutions. In the previous years, the different provisions for EUR 3.6 billion on the acquisition of Bioverativ were never included in the performance of activities. Consequently, that has had an impact on the results. Integrating those element, even if it creates a significant variation, would be a good thing to do, because those are operational expenditures, IFRS. My question is the following: Why is it that Sanofi does not communicate about these figures that would be the most readable thing to do?
The answer of management is the following: As indicated in our 22 document, page 141, this is the figure we use in the group to facilitate understanding of our operational performance by management and investor. This indicator does not replace the elements in IFRS. It is communicated together with IFRS. It's important to note that the communication of alternative performance indicators by issuers is a systematic practice in our industry. Second comment, restructuring costs are engaged in the context of the transformation process in order to optimize the activity. The nature of those expenditures is presented in the group's accounting principle in the universal registration document that is mainly related to departure plans, closing of sites, and also the costs related to the transformation strategy publicly announced.
We think that the accounting impact of those decisions does not have an impact on operational performance. Consequently, restructuring costs are excluded from the net business income. Thirdly, taking into account intangible assets, R&D projects, brands, results from grouping of companies, acquisition of companies, for example, or acquisition of assets or groups of activity, thus gives rise to a specific accounting treatment at the date of acquisition. The group thinks that accounting effects related to this exercise is not related to the operational performance of the. In order to avoid any distortion, all of the amortization and depreciation of intangible assets are excluded from the net business income. The exclusion of restructuring cost for intangible assets from the performance indicator is applied also in the rest of it.
We consider that the net business income is a relevant indicator to reflect the operational group performance.
Thank you, Philippe, for that. Now we're going to move to the questions in the room. You have the floor. Panel set number 7. If you want to start, please, some discipline, if I may ask. Introduce yourself, give us the number of shares, and one question per person. That will allow us to give the floor to more people.
Good afternoon, Trudeau for APII, the Association for Individual Shareholders. I have 2 comments and 2 questions, if you don't mind. First, comment: you told us, you will overcome the fear of failure, free your potential. Congratulations to Mr. Hudson for your improvement in French. You have taken into account what we asked.
A number of people arrived late, and I was myself accompanied. Thank you for that. My two questions. First question, in October 2022, Sanofi announced the setting up of a new partnership with Dassault Systèmes, with a view to optimizing production of EVFs, the future modular plants, which you are in the process of building in Neuville-sur-Saône and in Singapore. Are you going to be able to use that partnership with Dassault Systèmes to also optimize the marketing of the new target drugs? My second question, if I may ask a second question? Several targets are appearing here and there. How many dossiers for acquisitions do you look at? How many possible acquisitions do you look at every year?
How many go through, and what is the area of the world where there are more opportunities? Europe, North America, Asia, India? Thank you for your answers.
Paul, can you take the first question?
I think I understood you correctly. Thank you. Well, thank you for the compliments about my French. Small improvements, but I'm trying. The collaboration with Dassault is a great collaboration. It's great to partner with another incredibly important French organization with shared objectives to modernize how we use digital and data to do things that have never been done before. The EVF is something that has never been done by any other company in any other sector. It's incredible what we're building there, and we are bringing that technology and that digital emphasis to the rest of our manufacturing footprint.
The adoption of iLab, for example, is really to share best practice in real time, to improve yields, to make sure we can get medicines through and approved faster, and ultimately to be able to get them to the patients that need them in the most efficient way. I think our digitization agenda, I think Serge touched on it, as an industry, is behind many other industries, but I think we're gathering pace, and I'm very proud of the work that our manufacturing and supply group is doing to do that, and how we collaborate with R&D to make future medicines possible.
si je peux completer. If I may complement this answer, in reality, the mechanism of marketing is not totally controlled by us. Putting the drugs on the market, depending on the countries, that mechanism is done in interaction with public authorities, be it the FDA in the US or the HAS in France. Depending on regulations, depending the appetite for innovation, those processes take more or less time. Regarding France, it is true that the deadlines for approval new drugs are long. There's been an effort made in the last few years to shorten those processes, clearly. It is one of the objectives that was given to the French Ministry of Health.
Nevertheless, if we compare with other countries, we do observe that a number of products find it difficult to be accepted in France, not only for medical reasons, but also for reasons related to the prices given to those innovations. We do observe that in France, the medical benefit of the new products is much tougher than in other countries, which of course delays the launch. I'd like to take your second question by the same token, i.e., the number of opportunities we look at. Just one important point, the board of directors has given delegation to the CEO to look at all possible acquisitions under EUR 500 million. In pharma industry, figures are big. I was myself surprised when I arrived, because I think that...
I thought that $500 million was a significant figure. In reality, that is how the market works. We look at big operations. The most significant operations is not only acquisitions, it can be combinations with other companies, it can be legal agreements of partnership. There are a series of situations we can look at sometimes just to think about our strategic options. Sometimes, indeed, we have specific ambitions to carry out growth operations. Globally, I would say that the ratio between operations we do and operations we just look at is about less than 10%. I would say the actual figure can be 5%. We look at a lot of things. We do very little. Why?
Because our objectives are determined, as you may know, by innovation, the concern of innovation. Innovation is a key element for us. We have to be sure when we acquire a company, that in its portfolio, there will be innovation, and there are a few companies that can pass that test. We also make acquisitions at levels of product development that are quite early. There are a few companies that can pass that test of scientific validation or also intellectual property. Those are two major criteria when we have to choose targets. Anything else, Paul, you'd like to add to that?
Because I realize the industry is complex, that it's not uncommon now to pay EUR 1 billion for a medicine in phase I, which is seven , eight, nine years from launch, that has a 90% chance of failure. You have to put it into perspective, the how high risk doing drug discovery and development is, which is why we are so proud of the progress made, but also we have everybody working so hard to try and do these things when the odds are against them for success, and we do it for the right reasons. It matters greatly that in areas of unmet need, that we take those risks, we find ways to reinvest in R&D, because there's patients who have no drug available in a disease that is untreatable. That's why we do what we do, and we'll continue to do that.
One last thing, which is, in very important is valuation. For many years, we have had very high valuation of biotechs. You have seen, by the way, the drop in those valuations. Of course, that has slowed down our acquisition processes. I think that now the market is back at a more appropriate and selective levels of valuation. Given the balance sheet we have, we have some leeway, and I'm glad that we have been disciplined in the last few years because we could have destroyed value. Question seven again. Yes, I work in a hospital, and we're in the process of setting up a center to screen hemophilia in Africa. We're starting from scratch. What is Sanofi's ambition in the area of hemophilia and the new treatments?
I know that other competitors have innovative treatment. We have had Sanofi with Lovenox. We, Lovenox, we have a lot of new treatments, AOD, a lot of prescriptions that are much easier to use. Have you positioned yourselves on these oral anti-diabetic? You bought back Genzyme. We see now that medicine is more focused on rare diseases, treatments that are more targeted, i.e., combinations of molecules, treatments that are really adapted, personalized, to avoid those chemotherapies that are universal. The problem is that those treatments are developed by biotechs that are more innovative, inventive. Those biotechs are mainly U.S. The problem is that the valuation of U.S. biotechs are very high. You try to buy back some biotechs in the past.
Visibly, there are U.S. and Swiss actors that have made important premiums and were able to buy. Do you think that the world of biotechs is no longer accessible for you because it's too expensive? Do you think that R&D should be internal, going through artificial intelligence to screen more molecules to save time, testing the molecules with what you call digital twins that allow you to have a faster access to phase III? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Paul. To answer, to tell us about hemophilia and Lovenox, and also maybe answer to this question, I thought I'd answered during my previous presentations, because we're always doing biotechs, acquisitions of biotechs. We've acquired biotech, 15 biotechs in the last four years, which is about for a year. We're very active, we're selective.
I would like to give you one indication based on the figures that we have. 75% of biotechs bought back by Big Pharma lead to a failure. It's not only a question of buying back biotechs to improve your research. Besides, we have had a serious internal problem in our R&D, but today we want to have a balance between internal and external research. Of course, internal research must be the main element and complemented by external partnerships or acquisitions of biotechs. It is a balance to be found. It is a balance that is driving us. I think that we need a strong internal research to lead our growth and development policy. There's no way we can imagine a pharma with just collaboration or acquisitions of biotechs.
It would be impossible to do it because we wouldn't have the talents or the internal skills to carry out this acquisition policy. The central element for us is to have researchers, and developers that are a very high quality. All of the scores that we have seen about the evolution of R&D show that now we are at levels of efficiency in R&D that is quite high. Meaning that, we can trust our ability to develop research internally, complemented by external growth operations.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Serge. Just on the biotech piece, I think it is true that the availability of capital and perhaps some of the science in the U.S., because of a function of size, means more biotechs are transacted. We appreciate greatly the academic innovation that is happening in France and Europe, and in fact, it's a new area of focus for us. It is also clear that the translational medicine opportunity, turning a brilliant academic paper into a potential medicine, is an underdeveloped science in Europe.
One of the reasons Audrey mentioned the collaboration for the oncology cluster in the Institut Gustave Roussy, Paris-Saclay, is because we want to try and help foster the translational medicine component, so that ultimately brilliant academic research in one of the most revered centers in the world that has great ideas, can be in an ecosystem where maybe 5, 10, 20, 50 oncology biotechs may begin their life in that cluster over the next 10 years. That's incredible, and we're very proud of that. It is true the U.S. is perhaps better organized at that, but I don't think the science is better. We want to help in the organizing, and we're, you know, we're gonna play a big part. For hemophilia, I think that was where we started, if I remember correctly.
Yes.
You know, hemophilia is a devastating illness, as you know, and really there's 2 approaches to treating hemophilia now, hemophilia A. One is to try and return the blood to as normal levels of factor as possible, so you can live a life without fear. That's very difficult to do. The medicine we launched this year, ALTUVIIIO, allows people to live almost a normal life. Well, certainly a normal life for 5 out of 7 days. If you're a young person at school, that is a really important step forward. You can go and play at the break, you can play with friends unsupervised, you won't get bleeding in the joints, et cetera. But you normally have to be infused, often held down by a parent, 3 times a week and have an IV line put in you.
As a young person, that is quite a complicated thing. With the launch of ALTUVIIIO, it's just once a week, not on a school day, and a near normal life. That's a major innovation, you know, opportunity. At the other end, some point in late summer, early fall, we'll get data on fitusiran, our long-acting approach in hemophilia A, which may mean we take severe disease to mild disease. Not normal, but mild. You only have one injection every eight weeks. Incidentally, an injection that is thermostable at room temperature and allows for easier transportation, which means we can get into more challenging parts of the world, sub-Saharan Africa, for example, and to deliver a high-quality medicine. These things are greatly on our mind, you'll see more innovation in that, in that area.
I think lastly, it was an oral, anticoagulant question.
Yes.
Saying that there are other- I think you, I mean, there are new drugs, and Lovenox has played a major part before the pandemic in post-surgery, through the pandemic, continues to play a role now. We look to continually innovate. We're just giving you examples in hemophilia. We don't rest, really, trying to do the right thing. Some of these things are hard to crack. Not every company cracks everything all the time, but, you know, you know our commitment to trying to do these things correctly. Rare blood disorders, for example, we're one of the leading companies in the world and proud to be.
Panel 8. Question 8.
Good afternoon, Mr. Gendre, individual shareholder. I have a small question: Can you tell us about the distribution of your shareholders, L'Oréal, BlackRock, the employees? Can you tell us about that? Are you happy with the fact of having a lot of float, or would you like to have more identified shareholders? I had a question about your COVID vaccine, VidPrevtyn Beta. Is it better? I've seen on page 202 that you have EUR 260 million left over a contract. What's the situation at the end of the first quarter?
Jean-Baptiste, maybe regarding the contract or the contracts?
Yes, thank you for your questions about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Indeed, in 2022, we had a number of contracts, COVAX with Europe and other countries, and we had committed a number of expenditures. In 2023, those contracts are being settled. If you look at our results, we've indicated that we still have products coming in front of it, so we are normalizing all of this activity around COVID-19, i.e., without a significant or positive or negative impact, neither this year nor last year. We're in the process of terminating the contracts we have had with different states in the world.
To answer your first question about the structure of our shareholders, I'd like to say that for a company like ours, with such an important share capital in terms of dollars and euro, we can do a lot of things to promote the knowledge of the company. In the end, the decisions are individuals made by individual or institutional shareholders. What we can observe is that what has taken place on the market is that we have seen a very strong rise in the purchases made through ETFs, a form of collective management that has led to the disappearance of the direct relationship there used to be with shareholders. That's why we've had the great development of BlackRock.
It is a manager today which has, close to 7%, of all companies, managed by a series of polls in the form of ETFs, which are shares from different companies. Those are formula that represent indices, replicating various indices, that cuts part of the direct link with shareholders. Our wish, of course, is to keep disseminating information about our company. We're delighted to have individual shareholders. Unfortunately, we do witness a reduction in the number of individual shareholders. Things are better in France lately, nevertheless, I see a reduction in the number of French shareholders in the last two years. It's paradoxical because, it is at the benefit of shareholders from English-speaking countries. We're trying to do our best to inform shareholders directly.
We do the same efforts in all of the countries of the world. Of course, it is obvious that regarding Asian shareholders, they represent a very tiny minority in our capital because there are regional reasons that explain the fact that investors tend to invest more locally. Besides, the understanding of the pharma industry is not always that great throughout the world. That's why we have a single barometer. At the end of the day is our share price and its evolution, regardless of the composition of our shareholders. That is the real test of our shareholders' satisfaction.
What about the Beta in front of the name of your vaccine? Will you have a more stable version of that vaccine? Why do you call it Beta?
I think, well, first of all, I'll take the opportunity to say I'm very proud of our vaccine team that worked for two years to make a very good COVID vaccine. I realize everybody would like us to have been first, but as we maintained all the time, mRNA, if it worked, would have been faster. We didn't have mRNA, but if it had failed, then we'd have come at the right time. It's not an excuse, it's just the reality. We made a very good Sanofi COVID vaccine. I would say that it is in our feedback we've had so far, by the way, that people are noticing that they're not getting anywhere near the type of side effects that we're getting over the last few vaccines that people have had, feeling ill, feeling flu-like.
That's tremendous. We're getting wonderful feedback from people who've had it around Europe. I think you're alluding to the.
Yes, the name.
piece. The truth is, you know, I stand corrected by my head of vaccines, but I see as more a universal booster at this point. I think we just have to accept that the data supports a great immune response, really great immune response, and a durable immune response, perhaps even longer than mRNA. I think our team made a very good vaccine on a challenging platform. I think they've done an incredible job, and we're seeing a lot of patients asked to be vaccinated with it.
The move beta is included on the non-commercial? Beta means that we cover the beta variant. It's nothing to do with the provisional version. It's just because it covers the beta variant. That was said. Question number seven?
Bonjour, monsieur. Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Fevre, and I represent the French National Association, French Shareholders. I have a question. Maybe, you, Chairman, can enlighten us in regards to this matter raised by this gentleman who works in a hospital. You have the costs of new products being developed. You have those costs related to internal R&D and external costs when you acquire a company or you acquire a product. How is it broken down? I mean, over last year, can you give us a breakdown, how much internal, how much external, or even over the past four or five years, for five or five-year period?
Jean-Baptiste, maybe.
Well, thank you. That is a very relevant issue.
There are internal efforts and external acquisitions. The two go hand in hand. The trend over the past few years shows a direction towards more acquisitions rather than internal R&D and discovery. We have to strike the right balance, and that's what we've been doing. Constantly, we cannot disclose the details of our budgets on R&D and basic research. We just give an overall figure for R&D, but we need sound research teams so as to be effective both in internal, in-house, as it were, innovation, and to identify the best possible acquisition targets, and that will enable the company to develop innovations to bring them to patients. We have to strike that balance, and over the past few years, since the launch of Play to Win, we've tended to increase the budgets for internal research.
Paul?
I think that's a very complete answer. I'd just add that the industry is, depending on the company, is sort of 60%-80% internal versus external. We were around 60% internal. We've gradually migrated to 70% internal, which I think is the right balance, but it will never be 100%, of course, because while we're very proud of our scientists, they can't innovate in every area that millions of people are working on worldwide. We have to be open-minded to where we could add new mechanisms and different things. I think also just, I may not have heard it correctly on internal versus external R&D costs, the way we treat R&D cost, internal is our own people, and external is often using people, large clinical operations, who will run clinical studies for us under our supervision.
It doesn't mean it's internal science versus external science. We're trying to get to around 70-30. That gives us the best chance at being the most vibrant pipeline in the industry.
Merci, Paul.
Thank you, Paul. number 10. Bonjour.
Good afternoon. I am a Sanofian, I see things from the inside. You have displayed an outstanding performance, inside, we sometimes get a different picture. You've referred to research centers. How many are there still remaining in France? You have nice project for Sisteron, Aramon, in Aramon, but what you're going to have there? You're discontinuing chemistry.
Thank you, sir. Paul?
Yeah, I think, you know... Sorry, I think-
No, no, wait.
Somebody's screaming, but without using a microphone, so it's apparently a joke that fails to amuse us. We've decided to appoint a British CEO. Ever since he's come to office, he's been taking French lessons, and what we attempted, what we looked for was his skill and competence and not his identity card. We're not, we're not concerned about him or his nationality. All this controversy about Sanofi not being in France, Sanofi not being France anymore, let me just remind you of a reality. 4% of our revenue is in France, and yet we've kept 20% of our headcount in France. We've kept 35% of research. We've kept 40% of our industrial base. Find a foreign company who would do the same.
That's why we were able to keep this position, the standing that we have in France. For the past 13 years, I've heard this criticism leveled at us is completely unfounded. Who other than a French company would have such a presence? How could a foreign company? Imagine, had we come under foreign control, who would export from France EUR 19 billion in revenue? Enough of this. This is a highly politicized, highly erroneous, highly biased vision that you try, that people try and instill in the people's minds. We have a jewel. We have a magnificent company that is gaining ground, that is growing, that has become a global company, but it is because it has become a global company, that is also why it can have, enjoy such standing in France.
If it remained just in France, do you think for a second that we would be in a position to feed the plants that we have in France? Obviously not. You have to understand that rule. You have to understand that only by opening the company, by developing the company, when it grows outside the borders of its country, only then can it become a great company, keeping its forces in France. Otherwise, it's quite impossible. Apologize for this vehemence, since this is my last AGM, I can indulge. Okay. Are there other questions? Number 12.
Good afternoon, sir. I have been a shareholder since Jean-François Dehecq continuously, I must say, the service extended to shareholders has deteriorated. There used to be a booth for shareholders. I came in, I signed up, I registered.
I asked for the shareholders' booth. There was none. No shareholders standout. Looked around to see if there were any familiar faces. I didn't recognize any familiar faces. We used to have a toll-free number. You had it for many years, now it's no longer there. We had a regular phone number for shareholders. It has gone away as well. You have to send emails, but I don't have email. You have to call on the telephone. The switchboard said you cannot talk to investor relations. I gave the name of a person. This person is responsible for shareholders. Can I speak to her? "No." What are we to do? I mean, you say you want to like individual shareholders, but you don't treat us very well.
In the universal registration document on page 425, you say you're listening to shareholders, but you're hardly doing that at all. What do you propose to do in years to come, so that at long last, if you don't have the internet at home, how do we get in touch? Please let us know.
Jean-Baptiste will be happy to take that question.
Thank you, ma'am, for this question. First I would like to say on behalf of all the investor relations team, and especially those people who reach out to individual shareholders, we have been paying great care to the concerns of shareholders.
In your case, it is true that the exchange of information has gone digital to a large extent, and that leaves fewer possibilities to reach us by post, but we do answer letters. You can send me a letter and whatever concern, we will take on board. We also publish, well, some information to try help our shareholders understand our operations. This is intended for individual shareholders, and again, if you send me a letter, I'll make sure that you receive that document as well. Ma'am, we've heard you. I'll say, you're right. You should be able to get in touch with us, and we'll try and remedy this.
I mean, it is not right that as an individual shareholder, you should be obliged to own a personal computer, probably having a toll-free number again will be a useful thing. Encore, the dernière question? Final question number seven. 行 动 individual.
I'm an individual shareholder, when I came in, I asked for the universal registration document, I was not able to secure a copy, I will join the lady who spoke. Is it that difficult to make it available to us here? Well, look, that is also to do with CSR. We have reduced the volume of paper document to be in line with what we're trying to do.
We're not trying to hamper access to information which is available online, it's true that printing significant volumes of thick paper documents, because unfortunately, that document has several hundred pages, and I could see over the years that the volume has doubled. I mean, the number of pages has doubled in 10 years, we felt it was rather a good thing from an environmental viewpoint to avoid printing paper documents, which few people actually read them. I've seen people who try to read out this document, they are few and far between, that is the reason why we try and focus on digital versions. Maybe it's less convenient, that is more consistent with what we've been doing elsewhere. Right.
Look, I suggest we move on to the resolutions, and I will ask Philippe Peyre to kindly come up and read out the questions. We will not get into the detail of resolutions as we usually do, and we will vote on unless specific explanations are needed.
Right. We have the number of presidents, 18,093 shareholders represented or present, or voted by mail or online. The final quorum is 936,787,808 shares. The use of the voting box, the explanations will be given on the screen, so you can see in real time the result of each vote. All right, resolution number one. Le trente-et-un décembre deux mille vingt-deux.
To approve the individual company financial statements for the year ended 31 December. Please vote now. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. The resolution was carried with 99.91% of the votes. Resolution two, approval of the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2022. Please vote now. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried. Resolution three is appropriation of profits for the year ended 31 December 2022, and declaration of dividend. Please vote now. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. La résolution est adoptée. The resolution is adopted. four, that's the appointment of Frédéric Oudéa as director. Please vote now. Le vote est clos. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried. Congratulations.
Number five, approval of the report on the compensation of corporate officers issued in accordance with Article L.22-10-9 of the French Commercial Code. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is adopted. Number six, approval of the components of the compensation paid or awarded in respect of the year ended December 31, 2022, to Serge Weinberg, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried. Number seven, that approval of the components of the compensation paid or awarded in respect of the year ended 31 December 2022, to Paul Hudson, Chief Executive Officer. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is adopted. Number eight, setting the compensation for directors. Please vote now. Voting is closed. The resolution is adopted. Resolution number nine, approval of the compensation policy for directors. Please vote now.
Voting is closed, and the resolution is adopted. Number 10, approval of the compensation policy for the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried. We move to resolution number 11, approval of the compensation policy for the Chief Executive Officer. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried. Number 12, re-appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit as a Statutory Auditor. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried. Number 13, ratification of the transfer of the registered office, that is headquarters. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried. Number 14, authorization to the Board of Directors to carry out transactions in the company's shares, usable outside the period of a public tender offer. Please vote now. Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried.
Now, this is the extraordinary part of the general meeting. Resolution 15, authorization to the board of directors to reduce their share capital by cancellation of treasury shares. Please vote now. Voting is closed. The resolution is carried. Resolution number 16 is delegation to the board of directors of competence to decide to issue with shareholders' preemptive rights maintained, shares and/or securities, giving access to the share capital of the company, of any subsidiary and/or any other company related to the company, usable outside the period of a public tender offering. Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried. We have 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 or of any other company via a public offering usable outside the period of a public tender offer. Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
Please vote now. The resolution, oh, sorry, the vote is closed, and the resolution is carried. Number 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 related to the company by way of a private placement.
Le vote est clos.
Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed, and the resolution is carried.
Dix-neuvième resolution.
Number 19, delegation to the board of directors of competence to decide to issue debt instruments, giving access to the share capital of subsidiaries and or of any other company, usable outside the period of a public tender offer. Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed.
La résolution est adoptée.
The resolution is adopted. 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 related to the company, with or without preemptive rights, usable outside the period of a public tender offer. Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed.
La résolution est adoptée.
The resolution is carried.
21st
We arrive at resolution 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 of other company, as consideration for assets transferred to the company as a capital contribution in kind, usable outside the period of a public tender offer.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed.
La résolution est adoptée.
The resolution is adopted.
Vingt-deuxième résolution.
We have number 22, delegation to the board of directors of competence to decide to carry out increases in the share capital by incorporation of share premium, reserves, profits, or other items usable outside the period of a public tender offer.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed.
La résolution est adoptée.
The resolution is carried.
Vingt-troisième.
Number 23, delegation to the board of directors of competence to decide on the issuance of shares or securities, giving access to the company's share capital, reserved for members of savings plans with waiver of preemptive rights in their favor. Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
The voting is closed.
La résolution est adoptée.
The resolution is adopted.
Vingt-quatrième resolution.
We arrived at number 24, powers to carry out formalities. Please vote now.
Le vote est clos.
Voting is closed.
La résolution est adoptée.
The resolution is carried.
Mesdames et messieurs.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming so faithfully. I cannot say see you again next year, although I may well be in this very room with you, but on the shareholders' side. Thank you to all, and let's hope this is good year too.