#Daniel Vasella

[wildbeimwild]

Schwerreicher Hobby-Jäger wegen hohem Steuerbetrug verurteilt

Die Tiroler Jagdhütte von Novartis-Chef Daniel Vasella wurde in einer Augustnacht 2009 durch einen Brandanschlag verwüstet. Die Jagd-Villa Tiroler befand sich in der Gemeinde Bach im Lechtal, die zum Bezirk Reutte gehört. Laut “NZZ online” befanden sich in dem Haus unter anderem Kühlräume, Magazine zur Aufbewahrung von Jagdtrophäen und Garagen. Vasella war Pächter eines 4000 Hektaren grossen…

[visualcontext-stimuli]

Ready for Ai from VisualContext on Vimeo.

Machine Learning ist die Grundlage für rasante technologische Evolution. Man sagt, dass dieser Evolutionsschritt vergleichbar sein wird mit dem Aufkommen des Internets. Wenn man weiss, wie AI einzusetzen ist, können neue Bereiche erschlossen werden, mit einer nie dagewesenen Effizienz. Die Frage stellt sich, sind Firmen überhaupt bereit für die Evolution?

Machine Learning wird zunehmend in Geschäftsprozessen eingesetzt. Die Libraries von Google, Microsoft, etc. werden breiter eingesetzt, weil Machine Learning zur Wertschöpfung beiträgt. Allerdings werden die Resultate kaum hinterfragt. Sind die Entscheidungen besser als menschliche Entscheidungen? Müssen die Resultate verifiziert werden und wenn ja, wie? Wer ist da haftbar? Was sind die Auswirkungen von solch unreflektiertem Umgang mit Machine Learning?

Speaker: Franziska-J. Klebôn, Head of Data & AI, Microsoft Afke Schouten, Founder, AI Bridge Walter Diggelmann, Founder, AI-One Moderation: Lukas Stuber, Gründer Dept

Panel: June von Bonin, Digital Marketer, VisualContext Sophia Ding, Head Trustworthy AI & Responsible Tech, AWK Group David Vasella, Partner, Head Tech & IP, Walder Wyss Ltd. Daniel Meister, CTO Partner, Datahouse AG Das Event fand statt am 22. September bei Dept Zürich statt.

[eoglbmoney]

Can new drugs deliver growth?

Daniel Vasella has had a tough time as chief executive of life sciences company Novartis, from EUROMONEY

[breaktheaddiction-blog1]

/52/

Quotes

This film is intended to be an amalgamation of human thought. The ethos of my project is that all life is one. We all have the same fate and therefore there is no need to compete against each other. My creative process follows the same ethos, and for this reason, my script will be a fusion of thinking from not only myself but also others. Here are some quotes I have collected that I will consider working into my script.

The strange part is, the more I made, the more I got preoccupied with money. When suddenly I didn’t have to think about money as much, I found myself starting to think increasingly about it. Money corrupts the mind.

Daniel Vasella, formerly CEO of Novartis

If you want money more than anything, you will be bought and sold.

Rumi

Money often costs too much. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyday is a bank account, and time is our currency. No one is rich, no one is poor, we've got 24 hours each.    

Christopher Rice

Frugality includes all the other virtues. 

Cicero

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

Epictetus

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. 

Benjamin Franklin

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. 

Ayn Rand

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. 

Steve Jobs

Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present. 

Roger Babson

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fortune sides with him who dares. 

Virgil

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The earth laughs in flowers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

Rumi

Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls.

Rumi

You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all you experience to the highest advantage to others. Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.

R. Buckminster Fuller

It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival.

R. Buckminster Fuller

The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

R. Buckminster Fuller

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system. If we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them, sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.

R. Buckminster Fuller

The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow.

R. Buckminster Fuller

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Think of it. We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before - that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.

R. Buckminster Fuller

If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders. If he chooses Utopia, he must initiate an enormous education program - immediately, if not sooner.

R. Buckminster Fuller

To do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing.

R. Buckminster Fuller

We were deliberately designed to learn only by trial and error. We're brought up, unfortunately, to think that nobody should make mistakes. Most children get de-geniused by the love and fear of their parents - that they might make a mistake. But all my advances were made by mistakes. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't.

R. Buckminster Fuller

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

R. Buckminster Fuller

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

R. Buckminster Fuller

I have spent most of my life unlearning things that were proved not to be true.

R. Buckminster Fuller

[pharmaphorumuk]

Novartis confirms Alcon eye care unit spin off next month

Novartis has finalised plans for the long-awaited spin-off of its Alcon eye care business, announcing that the new company will list on April 9.

The Swiss pharma has approval for listing on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, adding that Alcon is expected to list on Switzerland’s SMI blue-chip stock index on its first trading day.

Alcon will have secured debt financing of $3.5 billion, adding that Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS were advising Novartis on the transaction.

Each Novartis shareholder will receive one share for every five Novartis shares or American depositary receipts that they hold at the close of business on April 8.

The newly listed firm expects to pay a dividend in 2020 and will focus on ‘bolt-on’ acquisitions to help boost operating margins to the mid-20% from the high-teens.

Under the leadership of new CEO Vas Narasimhan, Novartis is trying to move on from strategies developed by previous CEOs, such as his immediate predecessor Joe Jimenez, and before that Daniel Vasella.

Narasimhan’s idea is to rethink Novartis as a pure-play R&D based pharma company, underpinned by an investment in digital technology, and has decided that the surgical devices and contact lenses made by Alcon are surplus to requirements.

Novartis bought Alcon from Nestlé for $52 billion in 2011, as CEO Joe Jimenez, guided by then chairman Vasella, sought to build the company into a European healthcare business following the model adopted by Johnson & Johnson.

But Alcon proved difficult to manage and required continual investment to reverse falling sales and losses.

With the Alcon issue now resolved, the speculation is mounting about Novartis’ other key business unit – its biosimilars and generics arm, Sandoz.

Sandoz’s CEO, Richard Francis quit last week, prompting speculation that the unit will be the next to be spun off under Narasimhan’s new strategy.

Novartis is already de-linking Sandoz from its main business as part of a multi-year transformation that clears the way for a decision on its future.

The post Novartis confirms Alcon eye care unit spin off next month appeared first on Pharmaphorum.

from Pharmaphorum https://pharmaphorum.com/news/novartis-confirms-alcon-eye-care-unit-spin-off-next-month/

[enough-finance]

Phenomenal read! This is a phenomenal book. First, it gives the reader an understanding of how organizations REALLY work. Drawing parallels to organizations as living organisms, the book does a great job in explaining why organizations behave and act in the way they do- and as a result why they find it hard to consistently deliver what they would like to. Go to Amazon

How and why continuous innovation and adaptation can help an organization "live" longer What we have here is a "hybrid" narrative that develops on two separate but interdependent levels: a fictional account that focuses on Carl Berger (CEO of American Health Devices or AHD) and Claudio Feser's exposition of a core thesis that continuous innovation and adaptation can help an organization "live" longer. Only a few years ago, these were corporate equivalents of thriving organisms: Bethlehem Steel, British Leyland, Commodore, Digital Equipment Corporation, Enron, General Foods, Lehman Brothers, Pan Am, Polaroid, RCA, Texaco, TWA, Union Carbide, Uniroyal, Westinghouse, and WorldCom. Today? All gone. And keep in mind, this is only a partial list of organizational fatalities. Of the Top 50 in 1960, only 13 are among the Top 50 in 2010. As for the other 37, 23 have either filed for bankruptcy or been acquired. The remaining 14 are well-known but endangered. Go to Amazon

Serial Innovators Attention, reading and immersing with "Serial Innovators" may change the way you deal with people! First I was sceptical about reading just another book about how some managers "did it". But already after a few pages I was fascinated. This book is not about the young ambitious CEO Carl Berger, he is only the messenger. It is a mirror, a reflection about what business (and life) is all about. It is about our psyche, our abilities to cope with other people, and therefore it is about the most important part in our world, our interaction with others. Claudio Feser described accurately the real and important people problems we face in doing business. Go to Amazon

one of the best business books of past decade Insightful and super entertaining research - business - fiction Serial Innovators What Every Fortune 50 CEO Must Know Surprise: a page-turner business book A different "business" book Title a bit misleading - fortunately Highly insightful and readable at the same time Great Book!

[indikaconsult-blog]

Novartis planea entregar a inversores escisión de Alcon y recompra de acciones por 5.000 mln dlr

Novartis planea entregar a inversores escisión de Alcon y recompra de acciones por 5.000 mln dlr

Fuente: Reuters

ZÚRICH (Reuters) – Novartis planea escindir su negocio de cuidado óptico Alcon para los accionistas y recomprar hasta 5.000 millones de dólares en acciones mientras el presidente ejecutivo, Vas Narasimhan, reenfoca al grupo suizo en los medicamentos que requieren de receta.

Alcon, un legado del imperio construido por el exjefe de Novartis Daniel Vasella, ha sido problemático…

[dani-qrt]

Novartis hands investors Alcon spin-off and $5 billion share buyback

ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis (NOVN.S) plans to spin off its Alcon eye care business to shareholders and repurchase up to $5 billion in shares, as Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan refocuses the Swiss firm on prescription drugs.

FILE PHOTO: Swiss drugmaker Novartis’ logo is seen at the company’s plant in the northern Swiss town of Stein, Switzerland October 23, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

Narasimhan, a Harvard-trained U.S. doctor, said on Friday it was premature to give a valuation for U.S.-based Alcon, which Novartis bought for $52 billion in 2011, although his predecessor Joe Jimenez once estimated it at $25-$35 billion.

Alcon, a hangover from the empire-building legacy of former Novartis boss Daniel Vasella, could be worth between $15 and $23 billion, Bank Vontobel analysts said, adding that its ongoing recovery would influence the final price.

Novartis had to make massive investments to reverse falling sales and losses at Alcon, although its revenue is again growing and it posted a $90 million first quarter operating profit.

Novartis plans a shareholder meeting in February 2019 to seek approval for the spin-off, which is due to be completed in the first half of next year, while the share buyback is due to be completed by the end of next year.

Shares in Novartis were 2.9 percent higher at 0757 GMT as investors welcomed the Alcon separation and share buyback.

Narasimhan is pressing ahead with Jimenez’s reversal of the decade-long expansion under Vasella, the former CEO and chairman. (reut.rs/2KvMKPK)

Since Vasella’s departure in 2013, Novartis has exited vaccines, dumped its animal health business and earlier this year unloaded its consumer health joint venture with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) for around $13 billion.

“A company like ours needs to focus our capital in our area of strength which I believe is innovating world class medicines and I’d like to build our strength in digital and data technologies,” Narasimhan told reporters on a conference call.

NARASIMHAN REFOCUSES

Since last year, Novartis has bought U.S.-based Avexis for $8.7 billion and French-based Advanced Accelerator Applications for $3.9 billion, giving it a platform in both gene therapy and radiopharmaceuticals respectively.

Novartis has also been investing in digital technology, including a mobile app to collect eye disease data.

Alcon makes surgical equipment to treat cataracts and contact lenses, businesses that no longer fit Novartis’s prescription drugs blueprint.

Novartis will retain its roughly $3.6 billion prescription eye drugs portfolio, which it previously moved from Alcon into its main pharma unit.

Narasimhan has opted to unload to business to shareholders, long the company’s preferred option, after a review and Novartis will not keep any Alcon stock, he said.

A listing is slated for New York and Zurich, with Alcon’s existing head, Mike Ball, set become its chairman, while David Endicott will become Alcon CEO.

The share buyback will be partially financed out of proceeds from the OTC sale to GSK, Narasimhan said.

The Alcon spin off is a welcome diversion from a political scandal in the United States triggered by Novartis paying $1.2 million in fees to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

Narasimhan has called the payments a mistake, and the furor cost Novartis’s top lawyer his job.

Reporting by John Miller, editing by John Revill and Alexander Smith

The post Novartis hands investors Alcon spin-off and $5 billion share buyback appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tPN4BE via Online News

[dragnews]

Novartis hands investors Alcon spin-off and $5 billion share buyback

ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis (NOVN.S) plans to spin off its Alcon eye care business to shareholders and repurchase up to $5 billion in shares, as Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan refocuses the Swiss firm on prescription drugs.

FILE PHOTO: Swiss drugmaker Novartis’ logo is seen at the company’s plant in the northern Swiss town of Stein, Switzerland October 23, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

Narasimhan, a Harvard-trained U.S. doctor, said on Friday it was premature to give a valuation for U.S.-based Alcon, which Novartis bought for $52 billion in 2011, although his predecessor Joe Jimenez once estimated it at $25-$35 billion.

Alcon, a hangover from the empire-building legacy of former Novartis boss Daniel Vasella, could be worth between $15 and $23 billion, Bank Vontobel analysts said, adding that its ongoing recovery would influence the final price.

Novartis had to make massive investments to reverse falling sales and losses at Alcon, although its revenue is again growing and it posted a $90 million first quarter operating profit.

Novartis plans a shareholder meeting in February 2019 to seek approval for the spin-off, which is due to be completed in the first half of next year, while the share buyback is due to be completed by the end of next year.

Shares in Novartis were 2.9 percent higher at 0757 GMT as investors welcomed the Alcon separation and share buyback.

Narasimhan is pressing ahead with Jimenez’s reversal of the decade-long expansion under Vasella, the former CEO and chairman. (reut.rs/2KvMKPK)

Since Vasella’s departure in 2013, Novartis has exited vaccines, dumped its animal health business and earlier this year unloaded its consumer health joint venture with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) for around $13 billion.

“A company like ours needs to focus our capital in our area of strength which I believe is innovating world class medicines and I’d like to build our strength in digital and data technologies,” Narasimhan told reporters on a conference call.

NARASIMHAN REFOCUSES

Since last year, Novartis has bought U.S.-based Avexis for $8.7 billion and French-based Advanced Accelerator Applications for $3.9 billion, giving it a platform in both gene therapy and radiopharmaceuticals respectively.

Novartis has also been investing in digital technology, including a mobile app to collect eye disease data.

Alcon makes surgical equipment to treat cataracts and contact lenses, businesses that no longer fit Novartis’s prescription drugs blueprint.

Novartis will retain its roughly $3.6 billion prescription eye drugs portfolio, which it previously moved from Alcon into its main pharma unit.

Narasimhan has opted to unload to business to shareholders, long the company’s preferred option, after a review and Novartis will not keep any Alcon stock, he said.

A listing is slated for New York and Zurich, with Alcon’s existing head, Mike Ball, set become its chairman, while David Endicott will become Alcon CEO.

The share buyback will be partially financed out of proceeds from the OTC sale to GSK, Narasimhan said.

The Alcon spin off is a welcome diversion from a political scandal in the United States triggered by Novartis paying $1.2 million in fees to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

Narasimhan has called the payments a mistake, and the furor cost Novartis’s top lawyer his job.

Reporting by John Miller, editing by John Revill and Alexander Smith

The post Novartis hands investors Alcon spin-off and $5 billion share buyback appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tPN4BE via Today News

[cleopatrarps]

Novartis hands investors Alcon spin-off and $5 billion share buyback

ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis (NOVN.S) plans to spin off its Alcon eye care business to shareholders and repurchase up to $5 billion in shares, as Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan refocuses the Swiss firm on prescription drugs.

FILE PHOTO: Swiss drugmaker Novartis’ logo is seen at the company’s plant in the northern Swiss town of Stein, Switzerland October 23, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

Narasimhan, a Harvard-trained U.S. doctor, said on Friday it was premature to give a valuation for U.S.-based Alcon, which Novartis bought for $52 billion in 2011, although his predecessor Joe Jimenez once estimated it at $25-$35 billion.

Alcon, a hangover from the empire-building legacy of former Novartis boss Daniel Vasella, could be worth between $15 and $23 billion, Bank Vontobel analysts said, adding that its ongoing recovery would influence the final price.

Novartis had to make massive investments to reverse falling sales and losses at Alcon, although its revenue is again growing and it posted a $90 million first quarter operating profit.

Novartis plans a shareholder meeting in February 2019 to seek approval for the spin-off, which is due to be completed in the first half of next year, while the share buyback is due to be completed by the end of next year.

Shares in Novartis were 2.9 percent higher at 0757 GMT as investors welcomed the Alcon separation and share buyback.

Narasimhan is pressing ahead with Jimenez’s reversal of the decade-long expansion under Vasella, the former CEO and chairman. (reut.rs/2KvMKPK)

Since Vasella’s departure in 2013, Novartis has exited vaccines, dumped its animal health business and earlier this year unloaded its consumer health joint venture with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) for around $13 billion.

“A company like ours needs to focus our capital in our area of strength which I believe is innovating world class medicines and I’d like to build our strength in digital and data technologies,” Narasimhan told reporters on a conference call.

NARASIMHAN REFOCUSES

Since last year, Novartis has bought U.S.-based Avexis for $8.7 billion and French-based Advanced Accelerator Applications for $3.9 billion, giving it a platform in both gene therapy and radiopharmaceuticals respectively.

Novartis has also been investing in digital technology, including a mobile app to collect eye disease data.

Alcon makes surgical equipment to treat cataracts and contact lenses, businesses that no longer fit Novartis’s prescription drugs blueprint.

Novartis will retain its roughly $3.6 billion prescription eye drugs portfolio, which it previously moved from Alcon into its main pharma unit.

Narasimhan has opted to unload to business to shareholders, long the company’s preferred option, after a review and Novartis will not keep any Alcon stock, he said.

A listing is slated for New York and Zurich, with Alcon’s existing head, Mike Ball, set become its chairman, while David Endicott will become Alcon CEO.

The share buyback will be partially financed out of proceeds from the OTC sale to GSK, Narasimhan said.

The Alcon spin off is a welcome diversion from a political scandal in the United States triggered by Novartis paying $1.2 million in fees to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

Narasimhan has called the payments a mistake, and the furor cost Novartis’s top lawyer his job.

Reporting by John Miller, editing by John Revill and Alexander Smith

The post Novartis hands investors Alcon spin-off and $5 billion share buyback appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tPN4BE via News of World

[wionews]

Novartis's Jimenez to step down, Narasimhan named new CEO

 Novartis Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez will retire in 2018, with chief drug developer Vasant Narasimhan taking over as CEO starting in February, the Swiss drugmaker said on Monday.

Jimenez, 58, is stepping down following a decade at Novartis after having successfully secured US approval for a new gene therapy for leukemia last week but before Novartis returned to sales growth, which the company has forecast will resume in 2018.

"After 10 wonderful years in Switzerland, my family is ready to return to Silicon Valley and the United States," said Jimenez, a Stanford University graduate.

A Novartis employee since 2005, Narasimhan has increased his public presence at Novartis since becoming global head of drug development and chief medical officer in 2016.

Just 41, he is among a new generation of youthful leaders at Novartis that include head researcher Jay Bradner at the Novartis Institutes For Biomedical Research who have sought to improve the process in which drugs move from research to actually becoming a commercial product.

Novartis has been criticised for missing the first wave of promising cancer immunotherapy drugs and billions in sales.

"Vas is deeply anchored in medical science, has significant experience in managing the interfaces between research and development and commercial units and has strong business acumen with a track record of outstanding achievements," Chairman Joerg Reinhardt said.

Last week, Novartis won US Food and Drug Administration approval for the $475,000-per-patient Kymriah for children and young patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the first so-called CAR-T therapy to win the regulator's blessing.

Dismantling Novartis

Jimenez arrived in 2007 to lead Novartis's consumer health division and rose to CEO in 2010 under former Chairman Daniel Vasella, who left in 2013.

Under Jimenez's tenure, Novartis has largely dismantled Vasella's efforts to build a European healthcare giant by unloading animal care businesses, vaccines and over-the-counter drugs and instead focusing on its prescription drugs business, including an emphasis on cancer medicines and its Sandoz generics unit.

The loss of patent protection for Novartis's top-selling Gleevec blood cancer drug has led to stagnating sales as generic competition escalated.

Jimenez has promised a return to growth in 2018, as new drugs including psoriasis medicine Cosentyx absorb the hit.

Jimenez has also been plagued by problems at Novartis's Alcon eye care unit, where slumping sales of surgical equipment were blamed on poor customer service and a failure to innovate.

He swapped out nearly all of the division's leadership, and last quarter lifted the forecast for the division's sales to rise by a low single-digit percentage rate as Novartis said measures including increased marketing spending are helping turn the division around.

Alcon is currently being reviewed for a possible sale, and Jimenez has said its improving results open the door for a possible spin-off IPO.

]]>

[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/novartis-has-assets-to-sell-investors-wary-of-what-it-might-buy/

Novartis has assets to sell, investors wary of what it might buy

ZURICH As Novartis (NOVN.S) considers asset sales that could raise $50 billion, investors are worried any cash raised may give the Swiss drugmaker firepower for another unsuccessful megadeal.

Novartis’s $52 billion takeover of U.S.-based eye care giant Alcon, completed in 2011, saddled it with a business whose sales and profit have faltered two years running.

Now, Chief Executive Joe Jimenez is reviewing Alcon’s surgical devices and contact lens businesses, suggesting they could be valued at $25-$35 billion if he unloads them.

The American CEO is also considering disposal of a roughly $14 billion stake in cross-town rival Roche, as well as his over-the-counter (OTC) drugs venture with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L), worth some $10 billion.Given Alcon missteps, however, investors are wary about arming Novartis with a pile of cash, for fear managers eager to refocus on cancer drugs as they address a sales hit from patent expiries might blunder into a big takeover.

“We would applaud selling those stakes, generally,” said Stephen Anness of Invesco Perpetual, Novartis’s 23rd largest shareholder, according to Thomson Reuters data.

“But what do you do with that money?” Anness said. “I would be very cautious about selling stakes…in things to raise a war-chest to go and do a massive deal, only for that deal to go and be another poor deal.”

To be sure, Jimenez has said Novartis’s M&A focus remains on smaller transactions, including lower-risk drug licensing deals, ranging up to $5 billion.

Still, Jimenez has not dismissed the notion of a larger transaction. He suggested last year the Roche stake – amassed during former chairman and CEO Daniel Vasella’s unrequited merger aspirations two decades ago – could be sold once another, potentially more significant transaction is lined up to absorb the proceeds. “We’re always monitoring what’s going on but have not changed our position regarding our M&A strategy or potential disposals,” Novartis spokesman Michael Willi told Reuters.

PORTFOLIO HOLES

Novartis, which is holding a two-day investor event in Boston on Tuesday and Wednesday, has portfolio holes a major deal could help fill.

Where rivals including Roche (ROG.S), Merck (MRK.N) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.N) have immuno-oncology drugs (I-O) on the market for a range of cancers, Novartis has only investigational molecules in this hot new therapy area.

Vas Narasimhan, Novartis’s drug development chief, could be tempted to look outside the company, some analysts said, especially as competitors including AstraZeneca (AZN.L) near approval for their own I-O molecules.

“We believe that Novartis may be pushed to liquidate assets in order to finance acquisitions in pharma,” said Michael Leuchten, a UBS analyst.

Speculation that Novartis might buy AstraZeneca sparked a brief jump in the British company’s stock last year. There has also been talk of its interest in Bristol-Myers.

PUT OPTION

For its OTC joint venture with GSK that emerged out of their2014 asset swap, Novartis faces a March 2018 deadline to exercise its put option for its 36.5 percent stake.

People familiar with GSK’s thinking confirmed the British group would be a willing buyer of the stake, which added $234 million to Novartis’s profit last year.

Alcon, whose eye drugs portfolio was moved into Novartis’s main pharmaceuticals unit last year, has been trimmed to include surgical equipment for conditions like cataracts as well as contact lenses and solutions.

When Jimenez began his strategic review this year, he said “all options were on the table”. Sales have fallen nine quarters, necessitating a costly program to arrest the fall.

Even Vasella, who bought Alcon as he sought to build up a European healthcare giant akin to Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), now acknowledges the transaction was a mistake.

Alcon’s problems have coincided not only with the patent expiration of its blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec but also with the lackluster launch of Novartis’s new heart failure medicine Entresto, which in 2016 missed sales expectations. Like Alcon, Entresto has forced the company to step up marketing investments.

A fund manager among Novartis’s top-60 investors said the Alcon and Entresto stumbles raise red flags about managers’ ability to tackle business challenges like a big takeover.

“A big deal might solve some of their issues, but personally I would prefer to see them doing smaller acquisitions,” the investor said. “A cash mountain of $50 billion would definitely make me nervous.”

(Additional reporting by Simon Jessop and Ben Hirschler in London; editing by Anna Willard)

[enough-finance]

Highly insightful and readable at the same time This is a remarkable book. It is built on extensive research in science, psychology, economics which is then translated in the world of business and organization development. Quite uniquely for a serious business book, it reads extremely well as it uses a book-long case study of a young CEO turning around an ailing medical devices company (a la Goldratt, in The Goal). This turns many of the theoretical insights immediatly applicable to many bsiness situations. Go to Amazon

Surprise: a page-turner business book This book achieves what only very few "business books" do: it takes scientific insights and applies them to real life (and real business...). The reader joins the journey of a CEO who faces challenges, discovers various concepts and then applies them. The book is entertaining and captures the reader from the beginning. A broad range of topics is covered in sufficient depth. Since reading it, I have had repeated "déja-vus" in my everyday life. Go to Amazon

Phenomenal read! This is a phenomenal book. First, it gives the reader an understanding of how organizations REALLY work. Drawing parallels to organizations as living organisms, the book does a great job in explaining why organizations behave and act in the way they do- and as a result why they find it hard to consistently deliver what they would like to. Go to Amazon

How and why continuous innovation and adaptation can help an organization "live" longer What we have here is a "hybrid" narrative that develops on two separate but interdependent levels: a fictional account that focuses on Carl Berger (CEO of American Health Devices or AHD) and Claudio Feser's exposition of a core thesis that continuous innovation and adaptation can help an organization "live" longer. Only a few years ago, these were corporate equivalents of thriving organisms: Bethlehem Steel, British Leyland, Commodore, Digital Equipment Corporation, Enron, General Foods, Lehman Brothers, Pan Am, Polaroid, RCA, Texaco, TWA, Union Carbide, Uniroyal, Westinghouse, and WorldCom. Today? All gone. And keep in mind, this is only a partial list of organizational fatalities. Of the Top 50 in 1960, only 13 are among the Top 50 in 2010. As for the other 37, 23 have either filed for bankruptcy or been acquired. The remaining 14 are well-known but endangered. Go to Amazon

one of the best business books of past decade Serial Innovators Insightful and super entertaining research - business - fiction Serial Innovators What Every Fortune 50 CEO Must Know A different "business" book Title a bit misleading - fortunately Great Book!

[ralphturchiano]

The real cancer killer: rip-off prices for drugs

Doctors say industry ‘profiteering’ threatens lives

Jeremy Laurance

Sunday, 28 April 2013

An influential group of cancer experts has warned that the high prices charged by pharmaceutical companies for cancer drugs are effectively condemning patients…

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