Novartis sees sales and profits jump at Irish subsidiary

Profits and revenues surged last year at the Irish unit of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, which employs over 450 in Ireland.

Newly filed accounts for Novartis Ireland Ltd show pretax profits jumped from €2.5 million to €4.9 million in 2015.

Turnover rose 37 per cent over the same period from €106 million to €148 million, with the company attributing revenue growth to the acquisition of GSk’s oncology portfolio and the growth of its global services centre.

The company said sales of pharmaceutical products grew 13.9 per cent versus the previous year, although gross margins decreased 1.7 percentage points over the same period. The subsidiary ended 2015 with net assets of €12.4 million versus €10 million a year earlier.

Novartis, the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company with revenues of $49.4 billion last year, was created in 1996 through a merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz. Group companies employ 118,000 worldwide, and its products are available in more than 180 countries.

According to the latest accounts, Novartis, which operates across three locations in Cork and Dublin, saw a sharp rise in employee-related expenses which jumped from €27.3 million to €47.1 million. The increase came after staff numbers increased to 451 from 267 following an expansion at the group’s Dublin-based business solutions centre.

Stock

The company said it ended the year with €25.3 million worth of stock, up from €18.4 million in the previous year.

Bloomberg reported this week that the unit’s parent was in talks to buy the privately-owned US generics maker Amneal Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at about $8 billion.

The group is reportedly weighing up the sale of its struggling eye-care business Alcon, which it acquired from Nestle 2010. Alcon had $9.8 billion in sales last year, equivalent to about 20 per cent of Novartis revenue.

Alcon’s Irish unit in Cork employs more than 450. Sales at the Irish division jumped more than 5 per cent to €41.78 million last year, according to recently filed accounts. However, profit before tax fell 4 per cent to €3.7 million.