Western Europe Asia Latin America North America
| Lek: its production capacity and |
Some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies have been exiting from the generics business but Novartis has made it clear that it intends to expand its share. The world's second-biggest pharmaceuticals company believes that the patent explosion of the past five years is slowing, and that a good toehold in generics will help it to undercut rivals, particularly arch-rival GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the biggest pharmaceuticals company.
One of GSK's best-selling drugs is Augmentin, which is used to treat pneumonia and sinusitis. Revenues from this drug last year were around $2 billion. Novartis has been producing a generic version of the drug in Switzerland, but production capacity has been reached.