Novartis reports flat profits but high sales

Novartis has reported its fourth quarter earnings with profits flat due to one-off payments.

Posting its results net income for the fourth quarter stood at $1,352 million, $2 million less than the same period last year.

However, sales for the fourth quarter rose to $8,657 million, from $7,578 million.

The lack of income growth was down to an impairment charge of $266 million when Novartis decided to stop developing the cholesterol drug NKS104 (pitavastatin) after Phase II trials as it was considered to be no longer competitive.

Without this and other one-off charges the company claimed income would have increased by 21 per cent.

For 2005 as a whole net income rose to $6,141 million, from $5,601 million in 2004, and net sales were up to $32,212 million.

Dr Daniel Vasella, Novartis chairman and chief executive, said: “It gives me great pleasure to present once again a strong performance and record results in 2005.

“We gained market share and concluded strategic acquisitions to strengthen our leadership position in areas with high growth potential and unmet patient needs.

“Our strong performance has allowed us to increase our access-to-medicines programs to reach 6.5 million people in 2005 with $696 million of products donated or sold at cost. We are confident of delivering in 2006 another year of dynamic growth with record sales and earnings.”

Looking to future developments the company announced that it had 76 products in clinical development, of which 50 are in Phase II, Phase III or registration and of which 45 are new molecular entities (NMEs).

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