An office building designed by Frank O. Gehry at the Campus of the head office of Novartis Ag in Basel, Switzerland.
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Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis Friday, said better than expected sales in the fourth quarter, but below his own advice on the section in the full year.
Net sales of the fourth quarter increased by 16% in constant currencies to $ 13.2 billion, compared to the 12.795 billion dollars estimated by analysts in an LSEG survey.
Quarterly adjusted basic operating income amounted to $ 4.86 billion against 4.23 billion dollars expected.
Actions increased by 3.16% to 10:00 a.m. in London.
For 2024, net sales increased by 12% in constant currencies to $ 50.32 billion, compared to $ 50.47 billion expected. The basic operating profit by an earlier year increased by 22% to 19.5 billion dollars compared to the planned $ 17.02 billion.
The company said that sales growth was mainly motivated by its Entresto cardiac success and arthritis drugs Cosentyx.
Novartis had increased its results guidelines in 2024 for the third consecutive quarter in October, claiming that it expected that net sales and basic operating income for the growth of “high adolescents” expected to the fact that “adolescents of the high middle” in the middle of adolescence were forecast previously.
The CEO Vas Narasimhan said that the results have marked a positive early signal since the implementation of a strategic overhaul in 2023 to position Novartis as a “company of innovative pure game drugs”.
“When you look at the momentum we have in the business, we really have the impression that we have growth drivers to take care of ourselves until 2025,” Narasimhan told Carolin Roth from CNBC.
2025 Outlook
Novartis has described its directives for 2025, the forecast of net sales will increase from “average to figures to an average figure” and the basic operating result will increase from “double -digit”.
Narasimhan has also minimized the expiration of the American patent for its best -selling entesto drug, which brought in $ 7.8 billion in global levels in 2024. The expiration of patents opens a drug for development by development by generic drug manufacturers, which increases competition.
“We actually have enormous replacement power,” he said, referring to the ability of drug manufacturers to market new treatments when patents expire on existing products.
“There are not many companies that can guide the growth we guide,” he continued, “since we have these expirations. It is really a testimony of the pipeline and the replacement power that we have in the company.
For the future, Narasimhan said that Novartis was concentrated on the progression of its development pipeline, including more than 30 assets “with the potential to stimulate long -term differentiated growth”.
This includes several key clinical trial results that released later this year, mainly a treatment for prostate cancer and another for chronic spontaneous hives, a type of skin disease.
Narasimhan said that the company would also continue to explore growth via acquisitions, in particular small businesses, to stimulate its development pipeline at the start and mid-term. Currently, around 60% of Novartis sales come from internal drugs created while 40% are external, said Narasimhan, adding that it was nevertheless happy that this ratio reaches 50 to 50%.
“Generally, big cases have not paid in the biopharmaceutical sector. Bolt-oons do so, if you can integrate them and bring these technologies into the company,” he said. During a bolted transaction, one company acquires another small business to complete or extend its existing offer.
