NVTSY $82 something up 2.xx on a down dow day! but who is keeping track?
Novartis says integration on target
ZURICH, June 17 (Reuter) - Swiss life sciences group Novartis AG (NOVZN.S) is still on target with its post-merger integration process and expects to have
achieved some 600 million Swiss francs of a planned two billion in synergies by the end of 1997, chief executive Daniel Vasella said.
``We are absolutely on target and on time,'' Vasella said in a telephone interview.
Novartis, formed by the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz AG (SANZ.S), expects to achieved some 12,000, of 60 percent, of its targeted headcount reductions,
Vasella added.
He made the comments following a meeting with industry analysts in Basle.
Vasella also said the company has 11 products in its new drug pipeline which it expects to launch by the end of the decade and the most promising of these are
expected to produce annual sales in excess of $500 million.
``I would say the ones which have significant potential are certainly PSC, Starlix, Zelmac, then Exelon and Apligraf these are I would say in a bracket above 500
(million dollars sales volume),'' Vasella said.
PSC is a drug designed to reverse multidrug resistance in tumour cells resistant to several anti-cancer drugs simultaneously.
Starlix is an insulin secretion stimulant, Zelmac is indicated for irritable bowel syndrome, Exelon for Alzheimer's disease symptoms and Apligraf is a human skin
equivalent designed to close difficult-to-heal wounds. |
