Sanofi: Rolaids will be relieving heartburn with its return to the market by the end of the year

PARIS — During a quarterly conference call Thursday, Sanofi president of global operations Hanspeter Spek noted that Sanofi's consumer arm Chattem will be relaunching the heartburn remedy Rolaids.

"We plan to relaunch the product, which has been absent of the American markets for production problems on the side of J&J," he told analysts. "We intend to launch the product by the end of 2013, which will further accelerate the performance of Chattem in the United States."

Sanofi has been very pleased with Chattem, Spek said, noting that Sanofi is now the third-largest consumer healthcare company globally behind Johnson & Johnson and Bayer. "The portfolio is growing by 9.9%, which is a good growth, I believe. The overall OTC market is growing in 2012 about 4%, 4.5%," he said.