novartis

Fortune Staff

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

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The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

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Novartis

Paige McGlauflin

The world’s 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies raked in over $700 billion in revenue in 2021

/2022/08/15/global-500-biggest-pharma-companies/

Eric Pfanner

Bloomberg

Novartis to cut as many as 8,000 jobs under plan to save $1 billion by 2024

/2022/06/29/novartis-layoffs-8000-jobs-under-plan-to-save-1-billion-by-2024/

David Z. Morris

Will the pharmaceutical industry keep collaborating after COVID-19? Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb CEOs say it has to

/2020/07/07/pharmaceutical-industry-collaboration-novartis-bristol-myers-squibb-big-pharma/

McKenna Moore

Novartis CEO explains why the wait for a coronavirus vaccine is so long

/2020/06/02/novartis-ceo-explains-why-the-wait-for-a-coronavirus-vaccine-is-so-long/

[MUSIC PLAYING] DAVID ABNEY: We're in the middle of a digital transformation. We saw a few years ago what technology was going to allow us to do and how it was going to change our industry. We had to make a quick choice. Do we want to be on the leading edge of that, or do we want to let others kind of take it over, then we try to catch up? So obviously, the answer was to really act like an entrepreneurial company and really focus on what we think we do best. And we knew to have our first drone airline which we call UPS Flight Forward that we're going to have to work very closely with the FAA. We are an airline, we know their processes, their language, their procedures, their expectations, and we knew we would be competing with some companies that weren't airlines that maybe wouldn't understand that process, so we thought that would work to our advantage. So we were the first one to get the certification. And now, we have to make sure that we're the first one to scale and scale in a rapid way, so that's the next step. What we're doing controlled deliveries and these are commercial flights, and we've done well over 1,500 of them already, so this isn't about the future. And so we're picking up any samples in healthcare, and it would be samples, and blood tests, and urine tests, and stuff like that, and pick it up from one part of our health care complex, some of these are just enormous, and take it to where it's analyzed in the other. And so you have landing zones back and forth, and you're landing on the ground and then doing this. But we're also experimenting, and we're doing tests with actual residential deliveries. It's going to take the FAA probably a year or so to finish the regulations on how we would do this. In the test residential deliveries that we've already done, and it's from one of our customers, a CVS drug store to a retirement village or to an individual house, is you'd have the drone that would pick up the shipment at a landing zone at the CVS then hover within about 20 feet, I was going to point at the lights, but the lights at this place are a lot higher than 20 feet, but, however, 20 feet a tether will come down, and has come down, and the package is released on the ground, and then the tether releases very quickly. The tether would just be withdrawn back into the drone. That's to avoid hitting someone on the head, landing on someone's dog. This tether would be a very slow controlled delivery. And then the only way it would hit you in the head is you'd have to dive under it. I don't think you would do that. VASANT NARASIMHAN: One of the things that David and I were talking about backstage is how actually these drones are helping us also reimagine access to medicines. Both of us work with a company called Zipline in Africa, which is now really transforming how medicines are delivered in Rwanda and Ghana to people who can't access the medicines, and it's happening at scale. I was there in Ghana last week, and there are entire regions of the country that get their medicines now entirely through drone delivery through parachutes, and we're working with the country to tackle a disease like sickle cell disease using this drone technology. But it's extraordinary to see how it's happening so quickly in tackling some of the big health care challenges the world faces. 

Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan and former UPS CEO David Abney explain how their companies are working together to get medicine quickly to the people who need it most.

Insights: UPS and Novartis Team Up for Drone Deliveries

Uncategorized

The companies are working together to deliver medicine.

UPS and Novartis Team Up for Drone Deliveries

The huge societal cost of every wasted moment in the quest to find treatments for COVID-19 has unleashed an unprecedented wave of data sharing and other collaboration between pharmaceutical companies.

How science is going to prevail and why collaboration is key

Health

COVID-19 has enabled a wave of data sharing.

I'm a physician in the industry. For 13 years, I have never seen the degree of collaboration that I'm seeing today. So, yes, it is true. We've started many trials. But think about the progress we've made. Uh, in, uh, in just six months, it's truly unprecedented, Uh, and it's the result of so many different stakeholders coming together. Yeah, I read the piece you wrote in Fortune, which was, I think, powerful. But, you know, arguing that if we use this collaboration mantra in cancer and heart disease and others think of what we can accomplish well, think about the fact that, you know, when when experts discussed the development of the vaccine and an antiviral, we've always thought about 5 to 10 years as the time frame. And now we're debating 1 to 2 years. And so we are leading from any cancer we're thinking about. How can we apply the learnings for the last six months and everything we're doing for covid? Uh, and apply that to cancer because there's so many people need new treatments across many diseases that I think it's imperative for us really use the learning from the last six months and transform drug development. That's what we should be doing as a result of the learnings of the last six months. And I'm really confident. No, uh, what amazes me is that there are millions of patients, obviously, with covid 19, we are collecting so little data as a medical community. I mean, you've been at the forefront of trying to digitize clinical trials and collection of data. Why are we using that across the board against this horrible virus? You know, I think we know that there are many challenges to overcome from a data standpoint. I mean, first, the good news. I'm really struck by the level of openness across the industry to share data. There is an effort at the at the Gates Foundation and collaboration with FDA. My name share in real time. A lot of the learning that rabbit both in the pre clinical assay development, but also in clinical data as we capture it. I think in the clinic, as you know, we have tremendous fragmentation of data systems across the hrs and related systems which make it hard to collect this information in real time in very credible ways. My hope is that this will be a galvanizing moment. We see digital now accelerating on really all elements in our industry of how we work, how we reach our patients, that we run our trials. Hopefully, this will also lead to the next step in really ensuring we have very high quality data that can be linked together and rapidly set. And I think some health systems are doing it effectively.

 Joe, the presidential candidates have been talking very forcefully about high drug prices and they want to do something about it. What is your reaction? What I say is, let's look across the entire health care system, from pharmaceuticals to the insurance companies, to the hospitals, and the physicians, and let's dissect the true cost of managing a disease. Let's look at what are the inputs that lead to a positive outcome and get rid of everything else, and we think we can save substantial amounts of money. Well, people want these breakthrough drugs. They just can't afford the high prices, and a lot of these insurers you're talking about don't want to reimburse people. It's not just about the copay-- I mean, what really is the solution on pricing. I think the solution is we have to shift from what has been a transactional approach with the health care system, where we're selling pills-- the number of pills that we sell, we get paid for-- to an outcomes based approach, where we're getting compensated based on that outcome of this medicine, and an example of this is our new heart failure drug, Entresto, that actually reduces hospitalization by about 20%. That's a massive savings for the health care system, so if we can shift more and more towards outcomes based pricing, we can look at all the interventions that are leading to that outcome, whether it's the drug or hospitalization or physician care, and then we can get rid of the elements that are not leading to the outcome. We think that will save about 25% of health care costs in the US. Joe, do you think, though, that at some point, it's just a matter of time that between the presidential candidates, the patients, and the providers that there's going to be so much pushback on pharma companies like Novartis to say, cut back your prices? Look, we want to be part of the solution, so I would say, we're going to work. We are right now working with patient groups and payers and providers to find a solution, and it's not just pharmaceuticals. Remember, pharmaceuticals is just 15% of the total health care spend bill, and I think what we need to do is find a solution that addresses sustainability, meaning not just pharmaceutical pricing, but also hospitalization costs and physician costs and nursing costs. Let's look at the entire ecosystem, and then let's come up with a way to really make this a sustainable system. 

Novartis' CEO Wants to Help Lower the Cost of Medicine in the U.S.

But says big pharmaceutical companies can’t do it alone.

Novartis' CEO Wants to Lower the Cost of Medicine

show. The presidential candidates have been talking very forcefully about high drug prices, and they want to do something about it. What is your reaction? What I say is, let's let's look across the entire health care system, from pharmaceuticals to the insurance companies, to the hospitals and the physicians. And let's dissect the true cost of managing a disease. Let's look at what are the input that lead to a positive outcome and get rid of everything else, and we think we can save substantial amounts of money. You know, people want these breakthrough drugs, they just can't afford the high prices. And a lot of these insurers you're talking about don't want to reimburse people. It's not just about the co pay. I mean, what really is the solution on pricing? You know, I think the solution is we have to shift from what has been a transactional approach with the health care system, where were selling pills. The number of pills that we sell. We get paid for two outcomes based approach where we're getting compensated based on the outcome of this medicine and an example of this is our new heart failure drug in trust. Oh, that actually reduces hospitalization by about 20%. That's a massive savings for the health care system. So if we can shift more and more towards outcomes based pricing, we can look at all the interventions that are leading to that outcome, whether it's the drug or hospitalization or physician care. And then we can get rid of the elements that are not leading to the outcome. We think that will save about 25% of health care costs in the U. S. Joe. Do you think, though, that at some point it's just a matter of time that between the presidential candidates, the patients and the providers, that there's gonna be so much pushback on pharma companies like no of artists to say, Cut back your prices? Look, we want to be part of the solution, so I would say We're gonna work. We're right now working with patient groups and payers and providers to find a solution. And it's not just pharmaceuticals. Remember, pharmaceuticals is just 15% of the total health care spend Bill and I think what we need to do is find a solution. That address is sustainability, meaning not just pharmaceutical pricing, but also hospitalization costs and physician costs and nursing costs. Let's look at the entire ecosystem, and then let's come up with a way to really make this a sustainable system.

How Technology Will Disrupt the Way Companies Innovate

Leadership

Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan and UPS CEO David Abney weigh in on the speed of innovation and the specifics of how their companies will improve experiences for customers. 

Novartis

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World's Most Admired Companies
As of 2/1/2023

Novartis

Company Information

World's Most Admired CompaniesAs of 2/1/2023

World's Most Admired Companies
As of 2/1/2023