Alcon's contact lens performance declines and is snubbed It may only be a matter of time before Novartis is sold Frequen
Alcon's contact lens performance declines and is snubbed It may only be a matter of time before Novartis is sold Frequent snubs Performance continues to decline - Alcon's "invisible" worries Novartis may only be a matter of time before Alcon sells Alcon. On Nov. 21, Novartis announced that it had abandoned its goal of starting clinical trials of autofocus contact lenses in 2016, a program previously led by Alcon Eye Care and planned to be available within five years. At the same time, in the Chinese market, one of Alcon's main businesses, contact lens products, one of Alcon's main businesses, is also under great pressure to divest Novartis into the countdown.
In 2010, Novartis spent $52 billion to buy Alcon from Swiss food company Nestle, but it is still deliberately reducing its investment in Alcon. On Nov. 21, Novartis announced that the groundbreaking smart contact lenses developed in partnership with internet giant Google were "on steady track," and that Novartis had abandoned its goal of starting clinical testing of autofocus glasses in 2016.
According to the data, in 2014, Novartis and Google began to cooperate in the development of two kinds of smart contact lenses, the main business market sales of which were more seriously squeezed by other brands. Currently, Alcon's business in China is dominated by contact lenses and care solutions. A reporter from Beijing Business Daily visited a number of optical stores and found that Alcon's market share of contact lens products is not large.
Among them, a "Daming Optical Store" only sells Alcon's contact lens care solution products. When a reporter from Beijing Business Daily asked if contact lenses were sold, the clerk said that Alcon contact lenses had not been sold in the store. Alcon, on the other hand, has only one variety of care solution and occupies a very small area of the container. In another "Treasure Island Optical Store", for contact lens care solution, the clerk said that Bausch & Lomb sells the best, but if you don't use contact lenses often, it is more suitable to choose Alcon because it only expires half a year after opening, and the others are mostly 3 months.
On the two levels of containers, Alcon occupies only half of the ground floor. The next "Bright Spot", the in-store care solution and monthly contact lenses, only sells Bausch & Lomb and Alcon products. However, the reporter found that Alcon products accounted for only 1/3.
The person in charge of a chain optical store in Beijing added that among the non-color contact lenses currently sold on the market, Johnson & Johnson, Bausch & Lomb, Haichang and Weikang are relatively high in sales, and Alcon's Shikang brand products entered China relatively late, with relatively high prices and average sales. According to the market research and analysis report of the glasses industry, the global market size of the contact lens industry is about 7.8 billion US dollars, with an annual growth rate of about 5%, and more than eighty percent of the market is in the hands of international brand manufacturers.
Johnson & Johnson, Alcon, Cooper and Bausch & Lomb have basically shared the market equally. Johnson & Johnson has a 38% market share, followed by Alcon with 20%, Quabber with 12% and Bausch & Lomb with 11%. In Chinese mainland, the annual output value of contact lenses is about 3.7 billion yuan, and the current market share is Haichang brand accounting for about 37%, Bausch & Lomb and Johnson & Johnson accounting for about 22% and 17%.
With the intensification of market competition in recent years, Alcon's contact lens products have also been greatly impacted in the fierce market competition. Divestiture on the horizon? Regarding the market rumors of Novartis divesting Alcon, Shi Lichen, head of Beijing Dingchen Pharmaceutical Management Consulting Center, said in an interview with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that no matter whether Alcon's performance is good or not, it is "a matter of time" for Novartis to sell Alcon. For all foreign pharmaceutical companies, it has become a trend to divest the less competitive departments and concentrate the backbone on the core departments.
Choosing to divest, sell or dismantle a relatively weak product line is conducive to devoting resources to strengthening and strengthening advantageous products and markets. Data show that from 2012 to 2016, as many as 631 patented drugs expired worldwide, and 18 of the top 20 best-selling prescription drugs in the world will have patent expiration This part of the global sales of this part of the drug is 142 billion US dollars per year.
The pharmaceutical industry generally believes that the "patent cliff" of foreign-funded original drugs has arrived, and focusing resources on the production of "products with high technical content in the patent period" can obtain the greatest guarantee of profits in the state of patent expiration. Since the beginning of this year, domestic pharmaceutical companies, as "pick-up heroes", have acquired mature products from the product lines of foreign-funded pharmaceutical companies.
In January this year, Bayer handed over five brand brands of drugs, including "White Plus Black", to Shanghai Pharmaceutical Holdings in the form of an integrated turnkey contract, and Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline also transferred the distribution rights of some varieties to local Chinese operators in May and July this year. In fact, Novartis has also divested some non-core divisions. Currently, Novartis' business includes innovative medicines (Novartis), eye care (Alcon), and generic drugs (Sandoz).
Since 2014, Novartis has conducted large-scale asset swaps with companies in the industry to strengthen their best-performing businesses. It acquired GlaxoSmithKline's anti-cancer drugs division and sold its vaccine division to GlaxoSmithKline; Sale of the Animal Health Division to Eli Lilly. In May this year, Novartis announced that it would split its pharmaceutical division into Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Oncology to further strengthen the research and development of anti-cancer drugs.
Currently, there are rumors in the market that Novartis is looking to acquire Amneal, a generic drug maker in the United States, following the divestment of Alcon. Novartis said it would not comment on the matter, calling it "rumors and speculation." But the industry believes that the acquisition is very likely. The reason is that the acquisition of Amneal will help Novartis boost its traditional generics business.
Sandoz's traditional generics business has struggled in recent times as pricing pressures have limited sales growth. The successful acquisition of Amneal will significantly enhance its biosimilar business and enhance its product portfolio with traditional generics.
Beijing Business Daily, slightly modified, prescription contact lens network.