Novartis South Korea

Novartis Korea is a 500-employee strong organization that registered a turnover of US$294 million in 2007 (272 billion won) and is dedicated to marketing, sales -- and research. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, the company was created in 1996 through the merger of two former Swiss giants in the pharmaceutical field, Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz. The history of Novartis in Korea began in 1984 with the arrival of this latter entity. Today, the company maintains a presence through four divisions: Pharmaceuticals; Vaccines & Diagnostics; Sandoz Korea (a separate legal entity), the only multinational generic drug company in Korea and the result of rebranding effort to give the Sandoz name a new identity as a generics portfolio; and Consumer Health, which deals with over-the-counter healthcare and lifestyle products such as CIBA Vision (also a separate legal entity) contact lenses.

Major products of Novartis Korea include hypertension treatments Diovan, Co-Diovan, and Exforge, this latter in copromotion with Pfizer; Glivec, a drug to combat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML); Neoral, an immune system suppressant for use with transplant patients; Lescol, a preparation to treat hyperlipidemia; Femara, to prevent the reoccurrence of breast cancer following surgery; and new products Lucentis used to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a sight-degeneration condition, Exelon Patch (Alzheimer's dementia) and Aclasta (osteoporosis).

Address:	Seoul City Tower, 581, Namdaemunno 5-ga, Joong-gu, Seoul
Website:	www.novartis.com
Phone:	+82 2 768 9190