Novartis announced Friday that it will cut around 1960 jobs in the US as part of a restructuring of its general medicines business in preparation for the loss of patent exclusivity on Diovan (valsartan) in the US in September.

The company said it will also record charges totalling more than $1.2 billion due in part to a "reassessment of the future sales potential" of Rasilez (aliskiren) following termination of the ALTITUDE study last year.

The drugmaker indicated that it will record an exceptional charge of approximately $900 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 related to Rasilez, as well as $160 million linked to termination of the elinogrel and SMC021 programmes.

The restructuring, which will affect around 1630 positions in Novartis' field force and 330 jobs at its headquarters, is expected to result in a charge of about $160 million in the first quarter of 2012. The company noted that the job cuts will lead to annual savings of around $450 million as of 2013.

"We recognise that the next two years will be challenging in the pharmaceuticals division and we are proactively making these changes to further focus our pipeline on the best opportunities and align our market position on our growth brands," remarked David Epstein, head of the company's pharmaceuticals unit.

"These are difficult but necessary decisions that will free up resources to invest in the future of our business which we view as well suited to bring new valuable therapies to patients and payors," he added.


(Ref: FinanzNachrichten, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Morningstar, Yahoo!Finance, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Novartis)