Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - (Page 6) Nycomed’s New Horizons Long-standing Nycomed CEO Håkan Björklund tells Pharm Exec Europe how the company is looking to new products, and new territories, to combat the patent expiry of its biggest selling product. 009 sees Håkan Björklund enter his eleventh year as CEO of Nycomed. When he came on board in 1999, the company was a small, primarily Scandinavian operation. With the acquisition of Altana in 2006, it was propelled into the major league, becoming one of the world’s 25 biggest pharma companies. Now headquartered on the outskirts of Zurich, Switzerland, the company employs over 12000 people worldwide and in 2007 boasted a net turnover of 3.5 billion. But after a decade of this remarkable growth and buoyant ambition, is it now time — as it clearly is for many industries — for Nycomed to endure a downhill slope? Certainly, the economic crisis has made the company, which is privately owned by a consortium including Nordic Capital and Credit Suisse DLJMB, think twice about its tentative plans to go public. Björklund isn’t unduly worried about the credit crisis, however: “In over 2 23 years in the industry, I’ve never really seen pharma sales being affected by an economic downturn in the western world,” he says. “We’re probably one of the industries that will be affected the last and the least.” But he does concede that this downturn is unprecedented and “you cannot go public in a situation where the stock market is down 10% one day and up 8% the other. The current volatility of the market makes it very difficult and very unattractive.” “In over 23 years in the industry, I’ve never seen pharma sales being affected by an economic downturn in the western world.” — Håkan Björklund His bigger concern is the imminent patent expiry, in the US and Europe, of Nycomed’s best-selling product, the gastroenterological treatment pantoprazole. By 2007, pantoprazole (Protonix in the US), a product inherited from the Altana acquisition, was the leader in 22 proton pump inhibitor (PPI) markets, bringing in sales of 1.7 billion. But at the end of that year, Teva and Sun Pharmaceuticals muscled in with a generic version, dealing a blow to Nycomed’s US sales. Nycomed sued — the US patent on Protonix isn’t due to expire until 2010 — but the episode served as a stark indication of what lies ahead for the drug. In the major European markets, pantoprazole’s patent expires later this year and Björklund admits that “this will certainly have 9 Q&A Singapore Economic Development Board 11 STRATEGY FUNDAMENTALS Overcoming institutional theory jargon 13 CALENDAR The next few weeks’ pharma events 2 NEWS Major award for European healthcare agency
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 Contents News Brussels Report From the Editor Executive Profile Q&A Strategy Fundamentals Calendar Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Contents (Page 1) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - News (Page 2) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - News (Page 3) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Brussels Report (Page 4) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - From the Editor (Page 5) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Executive Profile (Page 6) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Executive Profile (Page 7) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Executive Profile (Page 8) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Q&A (Page 9) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Q&A (Page 10) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Strategy Fundamentals (Page 11) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Strategy Fundamentals (Page 12) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 14, 2009 - Calendar (Page 13)
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