Novartis (AO) | Buy | Digital Swiss Seminar Feedback - very confident in the outlooks

Research evidence excerpt

Novartis (AO) | Buy | Digital Swiss Seminar Feedback - very confident in the outlooks

ewhere, rather than digging into pharma company fundamentals right now.

Company’s pitch

Novartis is clearly ever more confident in their ability to reach their 5-6% sales growth mid-term outlooks out to 2030. Consensus

is still moderately below that outlook, though consensus has risen and is starting to close the gap, reflecting increased belief in

Novartis’s constant very good execution and outlook raises.

And then beyond the 2030 period, Novartis has an even more different view to the market, aiming for mid-s.d. growth to continue

through patent expiries while consensus models decline. The rich catalyst calendar of readouts in H2 was highlighted as being

exciting and offering numerous chances to de-risk pipeline potential, including remibrutinib, pelacarsen and two Avidity drugs.

What’s new?

The new CFO Mukul Mehta indicated his aim is to offer continuity - that the existing "strategy is working, capital allocation – a

balance of investing versus innovation. Operational execution is also very good already - they have done a lot of productivity work

already, but that focus continues including leveraging AI.

AI constantly gets a few questions, Novartis sees it as an ongoing significant driver of cost efficiencies in day-to-day operations,

not talking about big headcount reductions, but potentially more like headcount to stay flat while their sales go up.

We thought the continued confidence in remibrutinib from Novartis is still striking, both on liver safety and on its potential to

treat several multi-billion USD indications.

Our investment view

We have been aligned with Novartis's view that consensus is notably too low on forecasts for several key drugs for some time