Novartis milestones be proud ! Management take a bow !

Discussion in 'Novartis' started by Anonymous, Jun 2, 2011 at 8:42 AM.

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  1. Novartis facing UK court battle over Jakavi PML claim
    Pharma Times Tuesday 20th January, 2015

    The family of an ex-Catholic priest is reportedly taking Novartis to court after he allegedly suffered brain injury from participating in a clinical trial assessing Jakavi (ruxolitinib).
     

  2. Novama Care

    Novama Care Guest

    Must be good if Jose sez so because you know he has nothing but the best intentions for patients & employees alike !!

    Novartis CEO: Supporting Affordable Care Act Supports Insuring Americans
    Ritesh Anan , Benzinga Staff Writer
    January 23, 2015 6:55am

    Isn’t Pharmaceutical Pricing Out Of Control?

    “I have heard that comment before,” Jimenez said, “but if you go back to look at what the pharmaceutical industry did when we supported part of the Affordable Care Act around insuring Americans...”

    “I am an American and I am running a Swiss company so I see all [these] countries, [all the] most developed countries with universal healthcare and the U.S. was one of the only countries that does not have universal healthcare.”

    “So, we strongly supported that. We did contribute towards it with higher Medicare rebates and with fees, Affordable Care Act fees. So we are funding part of the Affordable Care Act.”
     
  3. Settlement

    Settlement Guest

    Proves once again the fleecing of America's healthcare system

    Wis. AG, Novartis Settle Wholesale Drug Pricing Dispute
    By Melissa Lipman

    New York (January 27, 2015, 7:15 PM ET) -- The Wisconsin attorney general and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. reached a deal on Tuesday to stave off an upcoming trial over the state's claims that the drugmaker artificially inflated the cost of its medicines to Wisconsin's Medicaid program.

    The case, part of litigation that the state's attorney general originally brought against 36 drug companies in 2004 over average wholesale pricing, was set to go to trial on Feb. 2 in state court over the state's bid for $22 million in damages.
     
  4. Novartis says Japanese health ministry to suspend unit
    ZURICH Tue Feb 3, 2015 3:59am EST

    Feb 3 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis said on Tuesday its Japanese unit faced suspension by the country's health ministry, and that it could manage the financial impact of such a sanction.

    "We can confirm that Novartis Pharma K.K. has received a pre-notification from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW). We cannot give any further information at this time," Basel-based Novartis said in a statement.

    "While we would need to evaluate the details of any proposed business suspension Order from the MHLW, we believe that the financial impact will be manageable," the drugmaker said.

    Japanese news agency Kyodo had cited sources as saying the health ministry would order a business suspension of around 15 days for the Japanese unit. It said the ministry would finalise the order after giving the company an opportunity to explain itself. (Reporting By Katharina Bart;
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Can't we just do our work and be happy here? Please? The milestone to be proud of is we work for a global leader in many therapeutic areas. And we get paid reasonably well. And we have company cars. And we live in America, and we have glorious plumbing! Be thankful.
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    So we should ignore all the alleged corruption and wrong doing which affects the general public who do not benefit from working at Novartis?
     
  7. Novartis Improperly Withholding Docs, Whistleblower Says
    By Rebecca McCray

    New York (February 18, 2015, 1:23 PM ET) -- A whistleblower on Wednesday asked a New York federal court to order his former employer, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., to turn over its privilege log and produce documents he said were improperly withheld during discovery in a suit alleging the company paid kickbacks to pharmacies for pushing its products.

    According to former employee David Kester’s memo, Novartis wrongfully redacted and withheld relevant documents during discovery on iron reduction drug Exjade and organ transplant drug Myfortic, citing privilege and “nonresponsiveness” in the government-intervened suit.
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    We won't have these jobs in a year
     
  9. Karma ?

    The heir to the Novartis family fortune says she was swindled by a German nobleman and the Rothschild bank. Jim Armitage reports on a blue-blooded battle royale
    JIM ARMITAGE Author Biography Tuesday 24 February 2015

    It is a tale of feuding, wealthy European families that could grace the pages of Tolstoy.

    When Corinna von Schönau-Riedweg’s mother died in 2002, she would never have guessed she was about to become part of such a drama.

    In the inheritance, Ms von Schönau discovered a treasure trove: hundreds of millions of euros in shares in Novartis, the pharmaceuticals giant. Her grandfather had been the medicines pioneer behind the Geigy group, which went on to become Novartis.

    The bequest turned her into one of Europe’s richest women.

    Unused to so much wealth, and grieving for her mother, she says she was at a loss about how to manage so much money. Enter her aristocratic confidante, Baroness von Plotho. The two women had long been friends, sharing a passion for horses. Ms von Schönau knew that the Baroness’s husband, Wilfrid von Plotho, was a financial adviser to the blue-blooded Rothschild bank in Zurich.

    Confident in her friendship with the family and in the reputation of the famous bank, she entrusted the inheritance to them. She alleges Baron von Plotho advised her to sell tens of millions of the Novartis shares and let him manage the money for her.

    However, Ms von Schönau alleges that she later discovered, to her horror, that the Baron had lost tens of millions of dollars of her money on disastrous, highly speculative investments in the United States. One of the punts was on a company aiming to turn scrap into precious metal.

    Ms von Schönau recently won more than $15m in a US case against the Baron, in Boston, Massachusetts, and is now seeking to enforce the judgment on him in Europe.

    During those proceedings in America, she also sued Rothschild, although the bank successfully had the case against it thrown out, saying the Baron was not an employee and that the Boston courts had no jurisdiction anyway. Other parts of her case were also dismissed.

    Yet Ms von Schönau’s legal team claim they have uncovered new evidence about Rothschild and are taking the bank back to the Boston courts.

    The heiress described in her original legal filing against the baron how she trusted the famous Rothschild name, adding: “Tragically, this trust was misplaced.”

    The Baron invested millions of dollars in a number of US private equity ventures, but they went bad and, at the time of the legal claim, were worth merely tens of thousands.

    On top of that, he got about $8m (£5m) in finder’s fees while Rothschild levied management charges of about 450,000 Swiss francs (£306,000), she alleged.

    Much of her money went into a US start-up called Continuum Energy Technologies and associated companies. Continuum’s board was chaired by Michael Porter, a Harvard professor, and the company aimed to alter the properties of metals in a way some critics have described as “attempted alchemy”.

    Ms von Schönau argued in the US case against the Baron: “The poor investment recommendations were motivated by von Plotho’s fraudulent double-dealing and Rothschild’s zeal for large deposits, accounts and fees.”

    She said Rothschild failed to supervise the Baron’s “pathetic” efforts, saying even the lightest of due diligence would have highlighted the risky nature of investing in the likes of Continuum, and said she was misled about the valuations of the investments.

    In a statement after winning the case against the Baron, she said: “Since Wilfrid von Plotho was an employee of Rothschild at the time, since there was an asset management contract between me and the bank in place, and since the bank did nothing to prevent him from engaging in behaviour of this sort, I have also filed an action against Rothschild Bank Ltd Zurich which is still pending.”

    Rothschild has hit back in a statement: “We categorically reject the claims that have been made against Rothschild Bank AG,” it said.

    “The US courts have already dismissed these claims on jurisdictional grounds, having found that there was no relevant link between Rothschild Bank and its former employee, who acted in his private capacity in relation to the matters in dispute.

    “This decision was upheld by the US courts upon appeal. We will vigorously resist the renewed attempts to involve us… In light of the ongoing legal proceedings, we are unable to make any further comment.”

    For both sides, there is much to play for: the heiress, who remains fabulously wealthy despite the Baron’s work, hopes to recoup her missing millions, while the famous bank, whose offices in London, Switzerland and Paris have served royalty and billionaires for generations, wants to preserve its good name.

    Let battle commence.

    The missing millions: timeline

    2002: Corinna von Schönau-Riedweg inherits large amount of shares in Novartis and retains Baron von Plotho, purportedly working for Rothschild Bank in Zurich, as her financial adviser

    2003: The baron allegedly directs Ms von Schönau to sell a large portion of the shares and move her money to Rothschild Bank, where he can direct her investments. Several accounts are opened, including a private equity account

    2004-08: At Baron von Plotho’s direction $44m allegedly invested in Massachusetts-based companies attempting to convert scrap metal into precious metals and waste materials into commercially scalable synthetic gas projects

    2011: Ms von Schönau allegedly discovers that $44m of investments are now worth approximately $53,000
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    to which other deep pockets buyer at the time did they sell her NVS position?
    they are riding an all-time HIGH in valuation if they held the investment up until today.
    how much higher can we fly?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWX_sutB3EM
     
  11. Guess you shouldn't have redacted them in the first place , oh well get busy

    Novartis Says Doc Deadline In FCA Suit Not Feasible
    By Margaret Harding

    Washington (February 24, 2015, 3:48 PM ET) -- Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. told a New York federal judge on Monday it would have to hire 40 more attorneys to work around the clock in order to meet a whistleblower’s Friday deadline demand for documents in the False Claims Act suit alleging the company paid kickbacks to pharmacies.
    “That simply is not a feasible deadline,” the company said in a memorandum for opposition, later adding that “Novartis would be prejudiced by being forced to make important privilege determinations in a very tight timeframe.”

    Novartis said former employee David Kester jumped the gun by filing a motion to compel the company to turn over its privilege log and documents, which Kester said were wrongfully redacted and withheld. Kester accused the company of providing kickbacks to pharmacies that encouraged the use of the iron reduction drug Exjade and organ transplant drug Myfortic. Novartis said it gave Kester unredacted documents Monday and offered to supply the first installment of the privilege log — approximately 12,700 documents — by Friday. The final two installments would be delivered March 13 and March 20, the company said in the filing.

    “Throughout this litigation, Novartis has consistently engaged in good-faith efforts to resolve numerous discovery disputes. … Such efforts were already underway to resolve the issues raised by the instant motion when relator prematurely sought expedited relief from this court,” Novartis said in its memorandum of opposition.

    Novartis already has reviewed and produced 27.5 million pages of documents related to the two drugs, including 4.7 million pages produced in response to Kester’s requests, the memorandum said. The company hired 14 lawyers to work solely on the privilege log, and said each attorney has worked 65 hours per week and expects to work 80 hours this week to meet the first installment deadline of Friday.

    Novartis estimated it would need to hire 40 more contract attorneys and assign four supervising attorneys to work 80 hours before Friday in order to produce the entire log, which it said would contain between 30,000 and 40,000 entries.

    “Novartis has no objection (nor could it) to producing a log for documents responsive to the government’s requests that it withheld on privilege grounds,” the memorandum said. “It merely seeks a reasonable time in which to comply with its obligation, and the schedule that relator has proposed is not that.”

    A Novartis representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In the motion to compel filed by Kester’s attorneys on Feb. 17, Kester argued that Novartis has refused numerous attempts to produce a privilege log and that turning it over by March 20, less than a month before the close of fact discovery, gives “insufficient time for a meaningful challenge to these dubious privilege claims.”

    The case is based on claims that the company provided kickbacks to pharmacies such as CVS Caremark in the form of disguised cash payments and patient referrals to encourage the use of drugs such as Exjade and Myfortic.

    The federal government opted to intervene in the suit in April 2013, claiming the companies caused Medicare and Medicaid to pay “tens of millions” of dollars in improper reimbursements.
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest



    Big day tomorrow!

    AGM.

    $tay fro$ty.
     
  13. LCZ Joke

    LCZ Joke Guest

    Novartis Amends Heart-Drug Trial
    Aim is to address questions relating to risk of Alzheimer’s disease

    By MARTA FALCONI and ED SILVERMAN
    Feb. 26, 2015 6:29 p.m. ET

    Novartis AG is amending a clinical trial of a promising heart drug it’s developing in order to address questions from doctors that the medication might contribute to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

    No evidence has yet indicated LCZ696, which is being developed to treat chronic heart failure, may cause a risk in humans. But some doctors question whether LCZ696’s ability to inhibit an enzyme that fights sticky plaques in the brain could lead the drug to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, if taken on a long-term basis.

    A recent paper in the European Heart Journal cautioned that previous studies suggest this type of medicine, known as a neprilysin inhibitor, “may accelerate” progression of Alzheimer’s. The authors of the paper, some of whom work as consultants to Novartis, declined to comment.

    Last fall, however, Costantino Iadecola, a Weill Cornell Medical College neurologist, told the Alzheimer’s Forum, a site where researchers share information, that the issue was a “worthwhile question.” Dr. Iadecola, who wasn’t involved in the EHJ paper, said “patients with cardiovascular problems are at heightened risk of Alzheimer’s disease already.”

    LCZ696 “saves lives and keeps patients out of the hospital,” said Patrice Matchaba, the head of development for Novartis’s critical-care franchise. “But we need to provide an answer to the scientific community.”

    Mr. Matchaba wouldn’t give a schedule for initial results of the test but said the independent committees reviewing the trial likely will evaluate results every six months.

    Still, questions about the drug’s potential to contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s have begun to worry some physicians even before it is on the market. Some say they would be concerned about the effect of the drug if people take it for a sustained period of time.

    Another question around LCZ696 is whether significant amounts of the drug penetrate the “blood-brain barrier,” the body’s way of protecting the brain from bacteria, toxins and other substances. Some drugs do pass through the barrier and Novartis’s Mr. Matchaba said a “very small quantity” of LCZ696 passed through it.

    “If a significant amount is found in the brain, I would be reluctant to prescribe it in the long term and probably would look for alternatives,” said Dr. Pieter Jelle Visser, an epidemiologist specializing in Alzheimer’s at the VU University Medical Center and Maastricht University, in the Netherlands.
     
  14. Novartis Japan Ordered to Shut Down for Failure to Report Side Effects
    Company must halt production and sale of its drugs from March 5 to March 19
    By PETER LANDERS
    Feb. 27, 2015 10:06 a.m. ET

    TOKYO—Health authorities ordered the Japanese unit of Novartis AG to shut down most operations for 15 days in March, saying the drug maker failed to report side effects from its products in a timely fashion.

    The order by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, issued Friday, said Novartis Japan must halt production and sale of its drugs from March 5 to March 19. Five drugs were excluded from the order because of the potential harm to patients if supplies fell short.

    The ministry said Novartis Japan failed to report 3,264 cases of side effects involving 26 drugs within the period required by law. It said the case was the first time the ministry had issued a suspension over failure to report side effects.

    Japan Prosecutors Charge Novartis Unit over Research
    Novartis Japan said it accepted the punishment. It apologized to patients and doctors for “causing trouble and worry.” The company said that after reviewing the side-effect reports, it didn’t find any that would necessitate changing safety information on drug labels.

    The company said it has bolstered education of employees to ensure that safety reports are submitted properly.

    The suspension is the latest blow to the Swiss drug maker’s business in Japan. Last July, prosecutors brought charges against Novartis Japan and a former employee related to allegations that data in a clinical trial were falsified. Novartis said at the time that it hadn’t found evidence of willful manipulation or falsification of data. In April 2014, Novartis replaced its top management in Japan.
     
  15. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    One way or another, we will overcome.
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

  17. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Epstein was perfectly aware of these shortcomings. Even more, he has promoted safety signal procrastination over the years, not only in Japan but on a global scale. This behavior is a systematic pattern at Novartis and requires a comprehensive audit in HQ and national offices.
     
  18. LMFAO!

    LMFAO! Guest

    & CUE CLOWN MUSIC IN 3....2....1......

    "Novartis CEO: We can rebuild our good name after 'reputational hit' in Japan
    March 3, 2015 | By Tracy Staton

    What's going to save Novartis' reputation in Japan? Science, says CEO Joe Jimenez, a week after the government suspended his Japanese unit for failure to report side effects.

    In an interview with the Japanese news service Nikkei, Jimenez admitted that Novartis ($NVS) took "a reputational hit" in Japan as a high-profile trial data scandal unfolded. Its brand may be tarnished in the country, but the Swiss drugmaker can regain its good name there, the CEO insists."
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    Was Japan's $1bn in annual Diovan sales worth it?
     
  20. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    What's going to restore the reputation in the USA. All the Science in the world wouldn't help.