Novartis Will Be A Leading Player In OTC Market

7 April 1996

Novartis, the new company from the proposed merger of Swiss drug majors Ciba and Sandoz (Marketletters passim), along with reaching number two position as a worldwide pharmaceutical group, will become the fifth largest player in Europe's over-the-counter medicines market and seventh worldwide, according to a new report from Datamonitor.

For 1995, the combined consumer medicines operations of Ciba and Sandoz produced sales of $1.3 billion. Ciba's contribution to this total was $920 million. The combined market share will be 3.1% in Europe and 4.5% in the USA.

1995 sales for Novartis' leading OTC brands are shown in the table below. It will have a number of strong products such as Venouruton and Maalox, notes Datamonitor, but it will not have a leading product in the analgesia market, one of the largest OTC categories. However, this could be tackled, it adds, by the switching of Ciba's prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory Voltaren (diclofenac) to OTC. A low-dose version has already been switched in Italy, where is is called Novaparina.

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