Vasella...no recibe. Y los médicos se "indignan" y...no recetan.

“My only way of protesting is to go on a prescription strike,” doctor Bertrand Buchs wrote on his blog on newspaper La Tribune de Genève on Friday.

On October 25th, Novartis announced it would close its production site in Nyon, dismissing 320 people. Shocked by the news, the rheumatologist decided to boycott the company.

He said he doesn’t understand “the financial logic” behind the firm's decision since the Nyon salaries “are only a small detail in the balance sheet” of Novartis.

The Association of Physicians of Geneva has given him its support “unanimously” and “without hesitation,” Buchs wrote on his blog on Tuesday. He said he also plans to ask his colleagues to join his protest at an upcoming meeting.(Ver)

También...:

Disgusted, a doctor from Geneva boycott Novartis drugs

Y días atrás...

ZURICH, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Protesters plan to gather in Basel and outside the villa of Novartis AG Chairman Daniel Vasella on Saturday in protest at hefty job cuts planned by the Swiss pharmaceutical company and others.

Outraged by news that Novartis is cutting 1,100 jobs in Basel and the small town of Nyon, Swiss trade union Unia, and Juso, the youth faction of the Socialist Party, are urging people to demonstrate.

The Basel-based group's decision to slash jobs in its home market came just a month after U.S.-based chemical maker Huntsman Corp said 600 of its jobs could go in Basel, a blow to the town of 190,000 inhabitants that has deep roots in the chemicals and pharma sector.

"Since July alone, four companies have decided to cut around 1,800 jobs in the region of Basel -- Swissmetal , Harlan and Huntsman, and now the pharma multinational Novartis, which at the same time posted a record profit of more than $10 billion," Unia said in a statement.

"Enough is enough! It cannot be that companies pull in billions at the expense of their employees," Unia said.

Novartis and Roche AG , which announced a round of job cuts last year, have stressed their commitment to investing in Switzerland, but both are outsourcing routine manufacturing and other operations to cheaper locations as they deal with a tough pricing environment and a strong Swiss franc. (Ver)

Youth faction of the Socialist Party (Juso) members demonstrate in front of Novartis Chairman of the Board Daniel Vasella's villa during "occupy villa Vasella" protest action in Risch near Zug, October 29, 2011. Juso demonstrators gather outside the villa of Novartis AG Chairman Vasella on Saturday in protest at hefty job cuts planned by the Swiss pharmaceutical company. Novartis AG is slashing 2,000 jobs in Switzerland and the United States to keep costs under control in the face of growing price pressures and the strong Swiss franc, the Swiss drugmaker said on Tuesday.

REUTERS/Christian Hartmann (Switzerland)

AstraZéneca: Que, en realidad, eran 7.300 menos...

AstraZeneca will make 7,300 cuts to its sales and R&D staff by 2014, but the company has not yet said what countries will be affected.

AZ said it would pay out around $2.1 billion for the lay offs, with $261 million being charged in the fourth quarter of 2011.

But the firm expects these cuts to bring in $1.6 billion in annual benefits by the end of 2014, which will help offset the loss from generic competition to its biggest drugs.

The company said that around 3,750 positions would be cut from sales and administration posts, with around 2,200 coming from R&D. The remaining 1,350 will come from operations, the firm said.

The GMB Union has said 250 to 300 of the cuts will be in R&D at the firm's site in Alderley Park, Cheshire, but this has not yet been confirmed.

AZ said in a statement: “Our priority in the coming weeks will be to work with our affected employees on the proposed changes, acting in accordance with relevant local consultation requirements and labour laws.”

Speculations about the cuts have been gathering pace in recent days, but today’s figure is over double what had been rumoured.

This is now the third phase of cuts from the AZ. The Anglo-Swedish firm axed 12,600 jobs between 2007 and 2009, and began a second phase of cuts in 2010, which will see an additional 9,000 staff lose their jobs by 2014.

All told, the firm will lose nearly 29,000 staff by 2014, bringing its total staff level down to 53,700. (Ver)

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Y AstraZeneca 3.000...arr_astra .

Austerity in Europe Puts Pressure on Drug Prices

By STEPHANIE NOVAK/ The New York Times

Profits at pharmaceutical companies have been declining or showing little growth for the last year as austerity measures across Europe lead to cuts in health care spending. Some analysts say this trend could continue until at least 2014.

Click sobre imagen para ampliar.

Budget cuts mean that many European governments are not willing to pay as much for pills. But new laws in some countries are also putting pressure on companies to prove their drugs are effective or risk having them dropped from the coverage list, or covered at a lower rate.

And price reductions in Europe can have a ripple effect. Profits from sales in emerging markets may also fall, because governments in emerging markets refer to the prices set in Europe to determine their own.

And price reductions in Europe can have a ripple effect. Profits from sales in emerging markets may also fall, because governments in emerging markets refer to the prices set in Europe to determine their own.

That would particularly hurt European pharmaceutical companies, which have been quite successful in emerging markets in the last five years. American companies, by contrast, do not rely as much on overseas revenue because of their large domestic market.

.../...

Analysts say that it is difficult to predict how badly profits will be affected in the next fiscal year. Other factors, including expiring patents, mean that each company’s profit will be affected differently.

.../...

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, posted a 7 percent decline in net income for 2011 despite a 16 percent increase in sales. AstraZeneca, based in Britain, posted full-year revenue for 2011 of $1.34 billion, down 2 percent from 2010. In 2011, net profit for the company’s West European market was down 11 percent from the previous year.

Kaushal Shah, an analyst with Business Monitor International, said the clearest way to see the effects of the euro crisis on pharmaceutical companies was in job cuts. AstraZeneca plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs in Europe, in addition to the 21,600 positions it has eliminated since 2007. Novartis, a largely European company, will cut nearly 2,000 jobs in the United States this year. Pfizer cut 6,000 jobs last May. In times of hardship, pharmaceutical companies usually lay off sales representatives and protect research and development departments, which lead drug creation. In this crisis, even research and development positions face cuts as companies strive to make these departments more efficient so as to reduce costs while maintaining a pipeline of new products.

“2011 is the first year recorded where R.& D. is down in the industry as a whole,” Mr. Bergström said.

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