Novartis (NVS) Oncology Head Strigini To Step Down By Dec. 31

Novartis AG’s (NYSE:NVS) CEO of Oncology business, Bruno Strigini, has announced plans to retire citing personal reasons. Strigini will step from the Executive Committee by Dec 31, 2017. Novartis will name a successor shortly.

Earlier, in 2017, Novartis announced that CEO Joseph Jimenez will step down from his position in 2018. Vasant Narasimhan, M.D., Global Head of Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer, will replace him effective Feb 1, 2018. Narasimhan is a member of the Executive Committee and joined Novartis in 2005.

Novartis is currently going through a transitional stage. In March 2015, Novartis acquired certain oncology products and pipeline compounds from GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK) for $16 billion. In exchange, it sold its non-influenza Vaccines business to Glaxo for $7.1 billion.

In January 2015, Novartis divested its Animal Health Division to Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) for approximately $5.4 billion.

Novartis stock has rallied 20.7% in the year so far compared with the industry’s 20.8% gain.

The company’s blockbuster drug, Diovan, is facing stiff generic competition in the United States, EU and Japan. Gleevec lost exclusivity in the United States in February 2016. The company also lost patent protection for the drug in EU in December 2016 leading to generic competition. The loss of patent protection for these top-selling drugs continue to hurt sales.

The performance of the Alcon business was weak due to competition faced by intraocular lens and a slowdown in demand for equipment purchases. Consequently, Novartis moved its ophthalmic pharmaceuticals business to the company’s pharmaceuticals division. Alcon will now focus on medical devices, surgical and the vision care business with three major businesses — IOLs, consumables behind the equipment, and contact lenses.

The turnaround has been encouraging and management believes creating a standalone company via a capital markets exit could create additional shareholder value. A decision is expected in the first half of 2019, depending on Alcon’s performance in the future.

Zacks Rank & Key Pick

Novartis currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in the healthcare sector is Corcept Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:CORT) which currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks (Strong Buy) here.

Corcept’s earnings per share estimates have moved up from 78 cents to 88 cents for 2018 over the last 60 days. The company delivered a positive earnings surprise in two of the trailing four quarters with an average beat of 14.32%. The company’s stock has moved up 124.5 % so far this year.

Wall Street’s Next Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Zacks EVP Kevin Matras believes this familiar stock has only just begun its climb to become one of the greatest investments of all time. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in pure genius.

Click for details >>