Novartis Chief: Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

In the company’s third-quarter conference call, Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez admitted that generic competition to its blockbuster Gleevec will continue to drag on the company in 2017. However, he touted a pipeline of 12 potential blockbusters and restructuring efforts over the past three years as evidence that the company will be positioned for growth from 2018.

Novartis AG is headed for an uptick but not for more than a year: that was the message from CEO Joe Jimenez as the company reported its third-quarter results. “The future of this company is not about 2017: it’s about 2018, 2019, 2020,” said Jimenez, responding to questioning by analysts on specific challenges the firm faces, notably the under-performance of its Alcon Inc. eye care division and the ongoing ramp-up in generic competition to its blockbuster drug Gleevec (imatinib), which will face European genericization from December 2016 on top of the existing competition in the US.

Executives acknowledged that the return to growth of Alcon, once promised for this year, will now be slower in coming,...