IMS Company Profiles - Report Buyer

IMS COM PANY PRO FILES NOVARTIS
Co-Diovan (valsartan + HCTZ) for hy per ten sion; and the wet age-re lated macular de gen er a tion drug
Lucentis (ranibizumab). Sales in Japan in 2008 were $2,987 million.
Novartis is also very pos i tive about the Chi nese mar ket. In 2008 sales in China were $456 mil lion. The
com pany’s to tal in vest ment in China now to tals over $400 mil lion, with two ma jor de vel op ments an -
nounced in 2006: a man u fac tur ing and de vel op ment cen ter in Changshu, and an in te grated bio med i cal
R&D cen ter in Shang hai. The re search fa cil ity will fo cus ini tially on dis cov er ing med i cines to treat can cers
caused by in fec tions, which make up a con sid er able pro por tion of the can cer cases di ag nosed in China.
Few groups have con ducted ba sic drug dis cov ery work in China be cause of con cerns about in tel lec tual
prop erty pro tec tion. In No vem ber 2008 Novartis was re ported to be in creas ing its in vest ment in this re -
search cen ter and in creas ing its mar ket ing team by 20%. Novartis plans to ex pand in both its eth i cal and
OTC busi ness and there have been re ports that the com pany is seek ing to ac quire a Chi nese OTC com -
pany. The goal is a 30-40% an nual in crease in its busi ness in China for the next five to ten years, ac cord -
ing to Jeffrey Li, Novartis’ China Pres i dent. Novartis currently ranks as the fourth largest pharmaceutical
company in the Chinese hospital market.
Ther a peu tic Fo cus
• Key Growth Driv ers: Car dio vas cu lar & On col ogy
Novartis is in an un usual po si tion of run ning both a generics and an in no va tive R&D com pany, which it
does suc cess fully with sep a rate boards of man age ment and thus avoid ing the ob vi ous ideo log i cal dif fer -
ences be tween the two con cepts. This strat egy also aims to pro long the lifecycle of its pro pri etary
pharmaceuticals when they come off pat ent al though would have to be care ful not to en ter into obvious
competition issues.
Novartis’ Phar ma ceu ti cal Di vi sion is com prised of the fol low ing ther a peu tic ar eas: car dio vas cu lar; on col -
ogy; neu ro sci ence; re spi ra tory; ophthalmics, der ma tol ogy, gas tro in tes ti nal and urol ogy; ar thri tis/bone;
and in fec tious dis eases, transplantation and immunology.
In 2008, Novartis’ port fo lio in cluded five block bust ers and was led by Diovan, for hy per ten sion, with sales
of $5.7 bil lion. In sec ond po si tion was Gleevec/Glivec (imatinib), for chronic myeloid leu ke mia, launched
in 2001, with sales of $3.7 bil lion, with Zometa (zoledronic acid), used in treat ing bone prob lems as so ci -
ated with can cer and os teo po ro sis, in third place with sales of $1.4 bil lion. Femara (letrozole) for breast
can cer be came the com pany’s fourth block buster in 2008 with sales of $1.1 bil lion, fol lowed by
Sandostatin (octreotide), for acromegaly, in fourth place, also with $1.1 billion in sales.
New prod ucts that have per formed par tic u larly well in 2008 con trib ut ing $2.9 bil lion to sales over all, in -
clude Lucentis (ranibizumab) for the treat ment of age-re lated macular de gen er a tion, sales up 125% to
$886 mil lion, Exjade (deferasirox) for iron over load up 49% to $531 mil lion, and Exforge (valsartan +
amlodipine) for hy per ten sion up 294% to $406 mil lion. Sales of the com pany’s lead ing Alz hei mer’s drug
Exelon (rivastigmine) have been re vived by the launch of the Exelon Patch and sales were up 29% to
$815 mil lion. The com pany has not had any new ma jor launches in 2008 but com pleted 14 ma jor sub -
mis sions in the US, Eu rope and Ja pan, with 2009 poised to be a big year for launches.
A re cent im por tant launch for the com pany was Tekturna (aliskiren), a di rect renin in hib i tor for the treat -
ment of hy per ten sion. Novartis is re ported to be in vest ing heavily in de vel op ing this drug, with a ma jor
global tri als pro gram un der way and two com bi na tion prod ucts al ready close to mar ket: Tekturna plus
Diovan and Tekturna plus the di uretic hy dro chlo ro thi a zide. Novartis hopes that Tekturna will achieve
sales of more than $1 billion annually.
In 2003, Novartis united its generics ac tiv i ties un der a sin gle global name: Sandoz. Ranked as the sec -
ond-larg est generics com pany in the world based on sales, Sandoz has made a se ries of tar geted ac qui si -
© 2009 IMS Health In cor po rated or its af fil i ates Page 10