Novartis posts double-digit sales and profit growth
pharmafile | July 19, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Novartis
Novartis had a strong second quarter of the year, with both sales and profit up on the same period in 2010.
The second largest pharma manufacturer in Europe after Roche, Novartis saw net sales rise 27% year-on-year to $28.9 billion, with net profit up 12% to $2.76 billion.
“Our diversified healthcare portfolio, focused on high growth segments, is enabling us to generate superior results,” said Novartis chief executive Joseph Jimenez.
Newly-acquired eye health arm Alcon contributed $2.6 billion in net sales, with the company’s generics unit Sandoz bringing in sales that were up 25% to $2.5 billion.
They help compensate from a loss of revenue from Novartis’ vaccines and diagnostics segment, which fell 47% to $299 million after last year booking strong A(H1N1) pandemic flu vaccine sales between April and June last year.
The Swiss firm is also facing up to the loss of its US patent on hypertension brand Diovan next year and its big-selling cancer drug Glivec in 2015.
Global sales of Diovan fell 3% to $1.51 billion in the quarter as markets including Spain, Canada and Brazil prepare for the appearance of cheaper generic versions of the drug. Novartis hopes its hypertensive brands Exforge and Tekturna will replace Diovan but, with combined revenues of $467 million in the quarter, the two newer brands have yet to do so.
Meanwhile Novartis’ hopes that Tasigna, already licenced in the US to treat CML, will replace Glivec suffered a blow earlier this year when a late-stage study of Tasigna for certain types of stomach cancers was halted after it failed to show superiority to Glivec.
However, the company is keen to stress the success of recent launches such as cancer treatment Afinitor, along with drugs which have come to market since 2007 generating $2.3 billion of Novartis’ pharma sales of $8.3 billion in the second quarter.
Overall US pharma sales were down 2% to $2.5 billion, although eye drug Lucentis ($541 million) and oral MS brand Gilenya ($79 million) sold well following launches in the US and Europe.
“We further demonstrated the success of our R&D strategy with four major approvals and two filings in the second quarter,” added Jimenez.
In Europe, single-pill blood pressure drug Rasilamlo was approved, along with a new indication for Lucentis to treat macular oedema in patients suffering from retinal vein occlusion – although Lucentis has just been rejected by NICE in the UK for the treatment of eye problems due to diabetic macular oedema.
In the US, Arcapta Neohaler – a novel once-daily bronchodilator for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – was given the green light, along with Afinitor for advanced neuroendocrine tumours of pancreatic origin.
The filings were an application in the EU for Janus kinase inhibitor INC424 to treat patients with blood cancer myelofibrosis, and one in the US to expand the indication of meningococcal vaccine Menveo to include infants as young as two months.
Adam Hill
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