The French drugmaker offered a mixed bag this morning: First, fourth-quarter profit fell, but beat analyst estimates, and sales rose. (You can see the full press release here).

Weak points: generic competition, particularly the flap over the Plavix bloodthinner, which suffered a 62 percent sales drop. Sales in Europe, meanwhile, rose just 1 percent as countries such as France and Germany pressured docs to prescribe fewer drugs and public health authorities to buy cheaper generics.

Second, Sanofi says its eagerly anticipiated weight-loss drug, Acomplia, won’t be available until late July, at the earliest, as the FDA takes still more time to review the pill.

Third, there was no word at all on merger talks with Bristol-Myers Squibb, although this doesn’t come as a surprise.

And this year won’t be so great either. Jean-Claude Leroy, Sanofi’s cfo, cautioned that generic competition would make 2007 a difficult year. “We still expect a certain level of generification in 2007 … The year will be difficult because of these phenomena,” he told Reuters.

[tags]Acomplia, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sanofi-Aventis[/tags]