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NOVARTIS

Novartis profits down in first quarter

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis saw its first quarter net profit fall 4.0 percent to $2.82 billion, the company announced on Tuesday.

Published: 19 April 2011 13:55 CEST

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis saw its first quarter net profit fall 4.0 percent to $2.82 billion, the company announced on Tuesday.

The fall was mainly due to financing costs related to its purchase of eyecare giant Alcon, the company said.

One-off costs associated with merging Alcon over the next three years are expected to reach $600 million. The sum includes severance, retention and relocation charges, said the group.

The integration of Alcon into Novartis’ IT platform alone is estimated to cost around $350 million, it added in its earnings statement.

Meanwhile, sales were up 16 percent in the first three months of the year at $14 billion, as the group benefitted from reporting in the US dollar, which has weakened against most key currencies.

The currency impact translated to a 2.0 percent boost on sales, noted the group.

Novartis chief executive Joseph Jimenez expressed satisfaction at the results, saying that “contributions from all businesses led to a good start in 2011.”

The Basel-based group confirmed its targets for the year, saying that it expects sales to “grow around the double-digit mark in 2011.”

It added that if exchange rates in March were to prevail for the whole year, there would be a positive impact of 3.0 percent on sales, and a negative impact of -2.0 percent on its operating income for the full year.

NOVARTIS

Switzerland’s Novartis to help make Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis said Friday it had signed an initial agreement to help produce the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19, as countries scramble to boost supplies.

Published: 29 January 2021 15:53 CET
Switzerland's Novartis to help make Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine
Novartis will help manufacture Pfizer vaccine. Photo by AFP.

The rare act of cooperation — in an industry usually marked by cut-throat competition — comes after French pharma group Sanofi announced earlier this week that it would also team up with rivals Pfizer and BioNTech to help produce 125 million doses of their jab.

The two-dose vaccine, which is based on mRNA technology, has been shown to be around 95 percent effective and has been approved for use by the World Health Organization and in some 50 countries.

But it is in limited supply as nations around the world race to immunise their populations against the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 2.2 million people in just over a year.

Novartis said in a statement that it would use its sterilised manufacturing facilities at its site in Stein, Switzerland to help produce the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs.

Under the agreement, the company said it would “take bulk mRNA active ingredient from BioNTech and fill this into vials under aseptic conditions for shipment back to BioNTech for their distribution to healthcare system customers around the world”.

Once a final agreement is reached, Novartis said it expected to begin production in the second quarter of the year, with initial shipment of finished product expected in the third quarter.

Steffen Lang, Head of Novartis Technical Operations, stressed that the company was “committed to leverage our manufacturing capabilities to help support the supply of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics around the world”.

“We expect this to be the first of a number of such agreements,” he said in the statement.

Novartis said it was already in “advanced discussions” with a number of other companies about with other production tasks, including of mRNA, therapeutic protein and raw material production for Covid vaccines and therapeutics. 

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