GAVI Alliance

With Novartis staying away from pro bono giveaways of its vaccination and social health products, GAVI's ten years of existence have a special proud moment for it. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization including WHO , UNICEF and the Gates Foundation was launched at the WEF in January 2000

When GAVI was publicly launched at the World Economic Forum in January 2000, immunisation rates in the world’s poorest countries were in decline and there was slow progress in introducing new vaccines against Hepatitis B and Yellow Fever.

Over the past 10 years, the Alliance has played a catalytic role in reversing these trends. Drawing on the specialized skills and knowledge of the leading public and private stakeholders in immunisation, from UNICEF and WHO to the Vaccine Industry and the World Bank, GAVI has:

- Funded the delivery of life-saving vaccines to 250 million children
- Averted five million future deaths
- Helped push immunisation rates in poor counties to an unprecedented 80% average
- Reduced the time lag between introducing new vaccines like Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and Hepatitis B, into poorer countries

In Nov 2006, the International Finance Facility for Immunizations issued the first vaccine bonds and claim to serve billions thru innovative financing and not millions.

Gates Foundation on Emerging Markets

VACCINATION PROGRAM

Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective public health measure, Bill and Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the next decade, to at least $10 billion.

The change could save the lives of as many as eight million children by 2020, Mr. Gates calculated. He said he hoped his gift would inspire other charities and donor nations to do the same.

The commitment is the largest ever made by a foundation, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which noted that $10 billion is slightly more than the total worth of the Ford Foundation, the country’s second largest. The Gates Foundation, created in 1999 with the fortune that Mr. Gates made from Microsoft, has about $34 billion in assets; it has already spent $4.5 billion on vaccines.

“Vaccines are a real success story,” Mr. Gates said in an interview before the announcement, which he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The cost is tiny, and yet it saves more lives than any other component of a health care system.”

Novartis December 2009 results

Great work by NVS, but it is still overpaying for Alcon while in a very infortunate attempt, mistreating the remaining minority interest in Alcon. Nestle walks away with close to $40 bn for ALCON

Novartis has already paid $11billion to Nestle last year for 25% and has agreed to pay another $28billion for 52% in Alcon still with Nestle. Hwvr, the remianing minority shareholders want the same or a fair deal while NVS expects a deep discount on the remaining

Results for December from the NY times

Drug maker Novartis (NYSE:NVS) AG on Tuesday reported a 54 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit to $2.32 billion on strong sales and favorable exchange rates, and announced the appointment of Joe Jimenez as its new chief executive.

Earnings per share rose 53 percent to $1.01 from $0.66 in the same quarter of 2008, when Novartis posted a net profit of $1.51 billion, the company said.

Sales of its products, which include the hypertension drug Diovan and anticancer drug Glivec -- known as Gleevec in the United States, rose 28 percent to $12.93 billion in the September-December period from $10.08 billion the previous year.

"The fourth quarter has been especially strong," outgoing CEO Daniel Vasella told reporters in a conference call, noting that Novartis benefited from better exchange rates and the shipment of large orders of swine flu vaccine in the final three months of 2009.

Interestingly, as mentioned otherwise as well, NVS did pursue a patent centric strategy and lost much blood in India/elsewhere. In the vaccines market also it refuses to get into emerging market specific pricing like GSK giving away free vaccines etc.

Also its $3.5 billion Diovan (2005) runs out of patent in 2012 . It has been creating Hypertension / BP reducing extensions, esp one with Pfizer..It also has a vaccine coy purchase from 2005. It expects Galvus to give $2 b in sales by then in the Type 2 Diabetes market. Indian drugmakers and others have also marked down NVS' Gleevec for patent challenges. Gleevec is its high volume drug in Cancer with another $3b in sales

Novartis is also going after the diabetes market with Galvus, a once-daily oral treatment for type 2 diabetes. Analysts project that the drug, filed in March, could hit $2.1 billion in sales by 2012, as it competes with Merck’s Januvia.

The biggest drug approval news for Novartis came from the generic division, which received clearance in the U.S. and EU for Omnitrope, which is not a biogeneric, but a ‘follow-on version of a previously approved recombinant biotechnology drug.’ That approval may open the door to a new era of follow-on biologics, as more of the pioneer biodrugs show their age.

ACQUISITIONS

Target: Chiron Corp.
Price: $5.4 billion
Announced: May 2006

Target: NeuTec Pharma
Price: $569 million
Announced: June 2006
More Vax

In September 2005, Novartis bid to acquire beleaguered biopharma/vaccine/blood testing company Chiron for approximately $5.1 billion, a sum representing the 58% of shares that Novartis didn’t already own. The deal finally closed at $5.4 billion, giving Novartis a position in the vaccines field, a $10.8 billion market that analysts project will grow at an annual 20% clip in the next five years.