Company Overview

Novartis is the sizable offspring of a 1996 merger that combined two Swiss pharmaceutical giants, Sandoz and Ciba. Since this merger, Novartis increased its operational efficiency by tightly integrating the three phases of drug development—research, development, and marketing. As a result, the company has built a reputation for developing new drugs more quickly than other companies in its industry. Although based in Europe, the largest share of its pharmaceutical revenue comes from the United States. The company manufactures an astonishingly broad array of drugs. In fact, there are few conditions or diseases in any part of the human body that Novartis can’t treat. Its biggest sellers in 2004 were the hypertension drug Diovan ($3.1 billion), the tumor inhibitor Gleevec ($1.6 billion), and Zometa ($1.1 billion) for cancer complications. In 2005 the firm announced that it was purchasing Hexal of Germany and Eon Labs for $8.4 billion and the over-the-counter unit of Bristol-Myers Squibb for $660 million.