Novartis milestones be proud ! Management take a bow !

Absolutely, vindictive emotional management by the dumbSpic & crew.
Look at how horrific they are treating reps after the Gender & OT court losses

 

EAST HANOVER TOXIC WASTE DUMP

 

WHEN A EQUALS B


(A)
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/Break...=B1&Id=1666086

Novartis Eye Drug Lucentis Fails To Win NICE Support For Diabetic Use In UK

7/15/2011 12:16


(B)
Workers in Horsham, some with as many as 35 years long-service, say they had their severance pay ‘guidelines’ changed 12-months prior to March’s announcement.

Because the ‘guidelines’ do not form part of the staff’s terms and conditions the company was not legally obliged to consult its work force.

Employees only found out about the changes to their redundancy settlement at the start of Novartis’ three-month consultation back in April, 2011.

The company is proposing to pay the town’s departing work force the equivalent of a two week salary for every year of employment, where as
union staff in Speke will get four weeks base rate

The official grievance lodge with management alleged that the firm breached its own employee handbook and discriminated against non-union workers

Novartis admitted in internal papers that the company had breached its own equal opportunities policy by allowing the union disparity.

But the outcome of the grievance showed the company did not uphold the complaints and did not accept that there had been any discrimination, in a “legal sense or otherwise”.

The workers at Horsham are still awaiting the outcome of an appeal against the company’s decision not to uphold their grievance.

Sitting in the County Times office the worker said: “The company makes great claims about how it treats its staff and everybody accepted the company line about the consultation. Novartis are a very large company and they had a very good year in 2010, particularly in Horsham.”

He added: “There is a general feeling that loyal people have not been looked after with the biggest element of that being the new severance package.

“The job losses came as a surprise, Novartis had a very good year in 2010 and the Horsham site especially, 2010 was one of its best years in terms of production and efficiency.

“Up until the redundancy process I would have been the first person to say what a good company Novartis is to work for, how they treat their staff, how they interact with the local community. Novartis are a very good company to work for but this process has left a very bitter taste in people’s mouths. This process has changed my thinking in that capacity.

Visibly angry he went on: “”There is a huge amount of frustration and bitterness between employee and employer.

“A phrase I’m hearing a huge amount around the Horsham site is ‘it doesn’t have to be this way’.

“We are disillusioned.

“My personal thought is that this is an arbitrary move to save money, nothing more, it is a calculate and contrived move and could be a sign of worse to come.

“Novartis have been a very good employer but they are leaving Horsham in a very cut-price fashion. The affect on the Horsham community will be huge, there is a big part of the community with linked to the company.

“Reducing people’s severance money in this way will mean there is less money in the local economy, workers will have less money available and time to re-train and it will force people out of the area.

Asked whether he regrets blowing the whistle he said: “it’s not something I have told people about because frankly people are too scared to stick their head up.

“But people have always said that Novartis are a company that will ‘always look after their staff’, just not now when we need them to most.”

All these points were put to Novartis so that they could respond to them in detail. However, the statement they issued as we went to press said:

“Following the announcement of proposals to restructure operations at its Horsham site in West Sussex in March, Novartis UK can confirm that collective consultation on those proposals has been completed, during which all counter proposals made by employee representatives were discussed and considered. The final proposals are now with the UK Board for consideration and approval and a further communication will be issued once the UK Board has made its decision.

“In the event that the proposals are approved by the UK Board, those employees whose roles are affected by the approved proposals will be supported by Novartis through the process, with the identification of opportunities for redeployment or alternative positions and, where necessary, outplacement services among other assistance.

“For some employees, the proposals will lead to redundancy and all redundant employees will be offered a severance package that will be enhanced from that required by statute.”

 

YET ANOTHER GREED DRIVEN FAILURE

JULY 27, 2011, 7:09 A.M. ET.Novartis Unit Withdraws Application For Generic Cancer Drug

ZURICH (Dow Jones)--Swiss drug maker Novartis AG's (NVS) generic unit Hexal AG, which belongs to generics division Sandoz AG, has withdrawn its marketing authorization application for generic cancer medicine Ibandronic Acid Hexal, the European Medicines Agency said Wednesday.

"In its official letter, [Hexal] stated that its decision to withdraw the application was based on the fact that the [European Commission] considers that the co-marketing reasons weren't acceptable in this case," the agency said in a report.

 

UK cost watchdog says no to Novartis MS pill

(Reuters) - Novartis's multiple sclerosis pill Gilenya, one of its biggest new drug hopes, has been rejected by Britain's healthcare cost-effectiveness watchdog NICE, which judges it not worth using on the state health service.

NICE said Novartis should have submitted comparisons with both beta interferons and Tysabri, rather than just against placebo.

"Unfortunately, our independent committee wasn't given sufficient evidence to show that fingolimod could reduce relapses considerably better than the other treatments currently being used,"

The drug does not come cheap. The annual cost of Gilenya in Britain is around 19,000 pounds ($31,000) per person a year, according to NICE, which is around a third less than the price in the United States.

 

LOSERS in Court ..YET AGAIN !

Commercial Court dismisses Novartis patent infringement action

August 08 2011
Background

On December 12 2008 Novartis sued Medis EHF, Laboratorios Stada, SL and ratiopharm España, SA for alleged infringement of its EP948320 patent on pharmaceutical compositions for the sustained release of fluvastatin (for further details please see "Novartis's endeavours to obtain interim injunctions come to naught"). In the lawsuit, Novartis asserted the patent as amended during opposition proceedings at the European Patent Office (EPO). Teva had sought to intervene as co-defendant in the proceedings as the new holder of Medis's marketing authorisations.

During the proceedings, Teva and Medis's main defence argument was that the patent in amended form as asserted by Novartis did not exist and was never legally effective in Spain.

 

Novartis, J&J Face EU Antitrust Investigation

By JEANNE WHALEN
Widening its long-running antitrust probe of the pharmaceutical industry, the European Commission said it is investigating Johnson & Johnson and Novartis AG's generic-drug unit for possibly colluding to keep a generic painkiller off the market.

J&J makes a painkiller patch called Fentanyl that is often used to treat cancer pain. In markets where J&J's patents on Fentanyl have expired, Novartis's generic-drug unit Sandoz sells low-cost copies of the drug.

In a statement, the commission's competition arm said it will investigate "whether contractual arrangements" between the companies "may have had the object or effect of hindering the entry on to the market of generic versions of Fentanyl in the Netherlands."

The commission said it is concerned that branded drug makers may be paying generic rivals to delay their launches of low-cost copies of branded medicines. "Paying a competitor to stay out of the market is a restriction of competition that the commission will not tolerate," the commission's competition czar, Joaquin Almunia, said in the statement.

 

Novartis to Cut 2,000 Swiss, U.S. Jobs, Add Staff in China
October 25, 2011, 12:28 PM EDT

By Simeon Bennett

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Novartis AG, Europe’s second-biggest pharmaceutical company, plans to eliminate 2,000 jobs in Switzerland and the U.S. and add employees in China and India to offset the effect of drug-price reductions.

Novartis will close a plant in Nyon, Switzerland, that makes over-the- counter drugs, and chemical sites in Basel and Torre, Italy, and plans a fourth-quarter charge of about $300 million.

Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez has been reducing costs since he took the top job in February 2010.

Novartis suffered a setback in its effort to develop new products to replace sales the company will lose to competition from generic drugs. Applications for U.S. approval of two experimental treatments for smoker’s cough, NVA237 and QVA149, will be delayed because additional data is needed

 

novartis is like michael jackson , the hits just keep coming !


Novemeber 21st 2011

Sandoz Agrees to Pay $150 Million to Resolve Drug-Price Case

Novartis AG’s Sandoz unit agreed to pay $150 million to resolve claims that it caused the U.S. and state governments in California and Florida to overpay for drugs, court records show.

The U.S. would recover $86.5 million, California would get $40 million and Florida would receive $15.2 million under the agreement filed Nov. 16 in federal court in Boston, where U.S. District Judge Patti Saris is overseeing the so-called average wholesale price litigation against drugmakers.

Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys Inc., a specialty pharmacy, sued Sandoz under the U.S. False Claims Act, as well as similar laws in California and Florida, which allow whistle-blowers to sue on behalf of the government and share in any recovery. Ven- A-Care would get $8.3 million from Florida and California. Its U.S. share wasn’t stated in court documents.

 

Novartis Execs, Cover-Ups And Jawbone Damage

By Ed Silverman // November 22nd, 2011 // 9:30 am


In a devastating blow to Novartis, a federal judge denied a bid to overturn a verdict in which a jury decided the drugmaker failed to adequately warn about the risks that its Zometa and Aredia bone-strengthening meds caused severe jaw bone damage. And in making his decision, he writes that the jury was shown sufficient evidence to conclude a cover-up was undertaken with “the knowledge and approval of high-ranking officials.”

The ruling, which was issued yesterday, was made by US District Court Judge James Beaty and came almost exactly a year after a jury awarded $12.8 million to Rita Fussman, whose family claimed she suffered jawbone damage while she was dying of breast cancer in 2009. The jury awarded $287,000 in compensatory damages, as well as $12.6 million in punitive damages, which were reduced under North Carolina law. The final award was nearly $1.3 million.

Novartis, however, sought a new trial and argued, in part, that punitive damages were awarded incorrectly. But the move backfired. In his ruling, Beaty notes North Carolina law requires that, for a plaintiff to win punitive damages, a jury must be presented with clear and convincing evidence at trial to determine that officers, directors or managers of a company “participated in or condoned the conduct constituting the aggravating factor giving rise to punitive damage.”

And Beaty decided that such evidence was, indeed, presented to uphold the punitive damage award. In other words, Novartis execs are being fingered. The Fussman case, by the way, was the first from the multi-district litigation in federal courts to be tried and the only case, so far, where a plaintiff presented evidence for punitive damages. As a result, his order may have the potential to reverberate across the hundreds of other lawsuits that Novartis faces.

 

http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/novartis-cuts-183-nj-jobs-pfizer-completes-ferrosan-

Novartis cuts 183 NJ jobs;
December 1, 2011 — 9:52am ET | By Tracy Staton

Novartis ($NVS) is cutting 183 jobs in New Jersey as part of its ongoing restructuring of clinical development work. News



THE PLACE TO BE !

 

HAW HAW DOUCHBAGS FAIL YET AGAIN !! HORSHAM SEZ EFF U

Novartis Pill for Multiple Sclerosis Rejected by U.K. Health-Cost Agency

By Makiko Kitamura - Nov 30, 2011 7:00 PM ET .

Novartis AG’s (NOVN) multiple sclerosis pill Gilenya failed for a second time to gain the backing of the U.K.’s health-cost agency, denting the company’s ambitions to turn the drug into a multibillion-dollar-a-year blockbuster.

Novartis failed to show that Gilenya would be cost effective compared with existing options available even after the drugmaker proposed a discount, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said in a statement today. NICE said in August the annual cost for the medicine, also known as fingolimod, was about 19,196 pounds ($30,134).

NICE advises the state-run National Health Service on which medicines represent value for money as the U.K. government works to save as much as 20 billion pounds a year on medical expenses

 

YA GOTTA LOVE NICE THEY ALWAYS SEE RIGHT THROUGH NVS SCAMS !!!

NICE Rejects Novartis Eye Drug For Treating Diabetic Macular Oedema
By Sten Stovall of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Novartis AG's (NVS) eye care drug Lucentis has been rejected by Britain's health costs watchdog as a treatment for diabetic macular oedema, due to the medicine's high cost.

The macula is the central part of the retina responsible for color vision and perception of fine detail.

Diabetic macular oedema occurs as a result of changes in retinal blood vessels in people with diabetes, whereas macular oedema occurs when fluid collects in the retina at the macular area, which can lead to severe visual impairment in the affected eye.


Chief Executive of NICE Andrew Dillon said in a statement: "We could not recommend the drug as a clinically and cost-effective use of National Health Service resources compared with laser photocoagulation for this condition."

He also said Novartis's analyses supporting its case were based on "implausible assumptions."

In particular, it was noted that the manufacturer significantly underestimated the cost of treatment by not accounting in its submission for the need to treat both eyes in a proportion of people with diabetic macular oedema, he said.

Lucentis costs GBP742.17 per injection and is given monthly, NICE said.

 

Novartis to shut brain research facility
Alison Abbott
06 December 2011

Novartis has joined other pharmaceutical companies in abandoning traditional drug-discovery programmes that pursue treatments for brain disorders.

Nature has learned that the company is closing its neuroscience facility in Basel, Switzer*land, where Novartis is headquartered.

 

FDA cites violations at three Novartis plants
Tue Dec 6, 2011 3:14pm EST

(Reuters) - Drug regulators cited Novartis AG for "significant violations" of manufacturing regulations at its three generic drug plants in the United States and Canada, several of which were repeat offenses.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigators found a lack of proper procedures to ensure the drugs' sterility and correct composition. They also found inadequate cleaning at one of the plants, FDA said in a warning letter posted on Tuesday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-fda-cites-violations-three-novartis-p-idUSTRE7B529N20111206

 

UPDATE 1-Phoenix says forces Novartis to resume drug delivery
Tue Dec 6, 2011 12:52pm EST

* Drugs distributor Phoenix says wins court injunction

* Phoenix says invoked public service remit of providing drugs

* Novartis not immediately available for comment (Adds details)

FRANKFURT, Dec 6 (Reuters) - German drugs distributor Phoenix said it won a court injunction forcing Swiss drug maker Novartis to resume delivery of pharmaceuticals, the latest twist in a dispute over discount pricing in Germany.

Through the temporary injunction, Novartis is obliged to make deliveries to meet demand," unlisted Phoenix said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Novartis was now forced to help Phoenix meet its public service remit of providing drugs to the general public.

Novartis was not immediately available for comment.

Novartis has also cut off other wholesale drug suppliers in Germany including rival Sanacorp and Gehe Pharma Handel, a unit of Celesio AG.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRcZZROphLM
Victimizing patients AGAIN
as the FDA just exposed
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7B529N20111206

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-12/novartis-confirms-patient-died-after-starting-gilenya-drug.html

Bloomberg

Novartis Confirms Patient Died After Starting Gilenya Drug
December 12, 2011, 1:36 PM EST

By Naomi Kresge
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Nov
artis AG said a multiple sclerosis patient died on Nov. 23 after starting treatment with Gilenya, the first pill approved to treat the debilitating neurological disease.

GUESS THOSE FILTHY FDA CITED FACTORIES ARE STARTING TO HAVE THEIR TOLL.
ON THE PLUS SIDE, THEY DID BREAK GROUND ON A SHINY NEW $600 MILLION PALACE FOR THE PHARAOH VASELLA

 

It's not a palace, it's a bomb shelter for when the shit hits the fan.

 

Novartis/Paratek Pharmaceuticals - Top 10 biotech deal terminations of 2011
December 19, 2011 — 8:03am ET | By John Carroll

Partners: Novartis/Paratek Pharmaceuticals
Based: $NVS - Basel, Switzerland; Paratek - Boston
Termination date: July 2011
Length: 1.8 years
Deal: $485 million
Program: The late-stage PTK 0796, a wide-spectrum antibiotic

What went wrong: In 2009, some analysts were giving PTK 0796--a wide-spectrum, single-dose antibiotic in Phase III--a big thumb's up as a potential blockbuster earner. Last summer, though, the value looked more like zero to Novartis.

Founded in 1996 by Tufts professor Stuart Levy and Harvard's Dr. Walter Gilbert, Paratek managed to raise $40 million in private financing from Aisling Capital, the D.E. Shaw group, Boston Life Science Venture Corporation, Nomura Phase4 Ventures, Novartis BioVentures, BioFund Ventures, HBM BioVentures, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, BioVeda Fund and Hercules Technology Growth Capital.

Exactly what happened with this program remains a mystery, though, as Paratek officials failed to return calls from FierceBiotech. There's no word of the termination on their Web site, and little to indicate what's going on at the biotech.