Novartis International AG has posted strong performance during the full year ended December 2008 on account of new products, acquisitions and strategic investments. The company's net profit, excluding exceptional charges, increased by 25 per cent to US $8,163 million from $6,540 million in the previous year. The company's net sales from the continuing operations increased by 9 per cent to $41,459 million from $38,072 million. However, net earnings after exceptional items, declined by 31 per cent to $8,233 million from $11,968 million.

The company management stepped up the dividend to Swiss Franc 2 per share for 2008, a 25 per cent increase from 2007 and representing a payout of 53 per cent of net income from continuing operations. The basic earnings per share improved by 28 per cent to $3.59 from 2.81 in previous year.

Commenting on the results, Dr Daniel Vasella, chairman and CEO said, "Thanks to successful innovation and a leading market position of our healthcare business portfolio, Novartis achieved a strong performance in 2008. Pharmaceuticals returned to dynamic growth and gained market share in the second half of the year, while vaccines and diagnostics continued its double-digit growth. Recently launched pharma products contributed $2.9 billion in sales in 2008."

The US remained the Group's largest country market with 31 per cent of net sales in 2008 as compared to 34 per cent in the previous year. The European region increased its contribution to 44 per cent of net sales as against 42 per cent in 2007, while rest of the world provided 25 per cent of net sales.

Pharmaceutical sales increased by 10 per cent to $26,331 million from $ 24,025 million in the 2007 mainly due to dynamic growth in oncology, sustained expansion of the cardiovascular portfolio and $ 2.9 billion of contributions by recently launched products including Aclastal/Reclast, Tekturna/Rasilez, Exforge, Exjade, Lucentis, Exelon patch, Tasigna and Xolair. Oncology growth was led by Gleevec/Glivec. Vaccines and diagnostics sales increased by 21 per cent to $1,759 million from $1,452 million in the previous year. Sandoz division achieved modest growth of 5 per cent to $7.6 billion.

The sales of Diovan improved by 15 per cent to $5,740 million from $5,012 million in 2007 and that of Gleevec/Glivec moved up by 20 per cent to $3,670 million from $3,050 million. Zometa sales improved by 7 per cent $1,382 million during 2008 and that of Femara increased by 20 per cent to $1,129 million.

The company is expanding in high-growth markets with a longer-term perspective, particularly among the leading emerging markets of Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, South Korea and Turkey. Novartis acquired Alcon Inc for $10.4 billion and Speedel Holding AG of Switzerland during 2008. Further, it also acquired of Protez and nectar Therapeutics' pulmonary business. The company completed 14 major submissions in the US, Europe and Japan during 2008.