Novartis announces ‘record’ results

Novartis has announced its financial results for the 2006 financial year. The company reported a 15 per cent increase in net sales to $37 billion (18.75 billion pounds). Net income rose 17 per cent during 2006 to reach $7.2 billion.

Earnings per share for the 2006 fiscal year rose by 16 per cent to $3.06, showing a double-digit increase for the fifth successive year.

Dr Daniel Vasella, chairman and chief executive officer of Novartis, said: “The strong performance in 2006 stems from our commitment to innovation and reflects the impact of strengthening our healthcare portfolio.”

He added that all business units of the company had shown strong performance, especially the pharmaceuticals division. He predicted additional growth in the newly launched vaccines and diagnostics business unit in the near future with further investment in research and development to maintain this performance.

Novartis is planning on launching a number of new pharmaceutical products over the next two years, including hypertension drugs Exforge and Tekturna/Rasilez, diabetes treatment Galyus and blindness therapeutic Lucentis.

Earlier this week, Novartis announced that it had been awarded a $55 million dollar contract from the US government to support its work in brining the Mf59 adjuvant antigen sparing technology into the US.