Novartis CEO Says Lek Well-Positioned in Central Europe, Russia
The CEO of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Novartis, has said that Ljubljana-based Lek, a subsidiary of Novartis' generic group Sandoz, is well-positioned on the markets of Eastern Europe and Russia, which afford enormous growth potential.
According to Daniel Vasella, the decision to put Lek's former chairman Metod Dragonja in charge of Sandoz operations in Russia will put a new mark to the weight of this market.
Vasella, who was in Ljubljana to participate in a panel on corporate management, believes Slovenia as a country is extremely well-positioned in the markets of Eastern Europe and Russia. This, as well as China and India are identified by Novartis as three very large potential markets with substantial growth opportunity.
"In pharmaceuticals for example, in China we grew about 50 percent last year and had an average growth beyond 25 percent compounded annual growth in the last five years," Novartis CEO said. He admitted that the company still does not occupy all the regions of the country, which also goes for Russia.
According to its CEO, Novartis currently does not have new takeover appetites as it is currently in the process of buying German Hexal and US Eon Labs. The company's main target is to remain competitive, efficient and prompt in all its operations.
"Last year Lek invested about 68 million US dollars in research and development, almost everything in Slovenia, and invested 110 million US dollars among other things in a biopharmaceutical plant here in Slovenia."
"Investments have been all-time high. So I think any concerns people have had when we acquired Lek that this would disappear were just unreasonable fears," Vasella said.
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