NOVARTIS: Vasella's "growth mantra for Novartis is follow the science, not the financials."Le creemos...?(I)

"If you are guided purely by financial estimates and not the science, you end up wasting time and money," he says.



With patents on many older blockbusters starting to expire, the industry is poised to lose an estimated $140 billion in sales to generic competition over the next five years. Those revenue sources must be replaced.



Despite multibillion-dollar research budgets, none of the top companies has a wealth of promising compounds in its development pipeline.

A former physician, Vasella reckons drug executives have strayed too far from their scientific roots and forgotten that their core customers are patients, not shareholders. "It's the tyranny of quarterly earnings," he says, a trace of an accent revealing his Swiss German upbringing.



It was a natural decision, given Vasella's unusual status as a physician-CEO in a profession where nearly all top executives have backgrounds in law, accounting, or marketing. "The industry really needs more leaders who are as passionate as [he] is about the business. He is a CEO who thinks like a doctor," says George.

Vasella places a high premium on medical experience. After a major restructuring in 2007 that led to the loss of 1,260 sales and marketing jobs, Vasella replaced some of the company's senior leaders with medically trained scientists who grasped his approach. According to Shannon, some of the old guard fled voluntarily. "They saw Daniel rewarding projects such as Muckle-Wells and said: 'If this is what the future of the company looks like, it's not for us,' " he explains.

Todo esto y "mucho mas..."