Word: sandoz
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...some of the world's biggest drug companies, including U.S. companies Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, Anglo-Swedish giant AstraZeneca, and Sanofi-Aventis of France. The other companies known to be raided were Wyeth, Merck, Bayer Schering Pharma and Roche, as well as generic firms Teva and Sandoz...
...raids, early on Wednesday, were launched from Brussels to investigate whether big drug companies were fixing the market to squeeze out copycat medicines. They included forays on Pfizer, Merck, Bayer Schering Pharma and Roche as well as generic firms such as Teva and Sandoz. Hours later, with almost ironic understatement, the E.U. competition watchdog said it had merely launched a "sector inquiry into pharmaceuticals with unannounced inspections...
Vasella came up with the name Novartis, from novae artis, Latin for "new skills." But he found it much harder to forge a dynamic culture for the merged company. Ciba's approach was almost academic and plagued by indecision. Sandoz had a command-and-control ethos that Vasella felt discouraged initiative. And there was the matter of strategic focus. Both companies were old chemical manufacturers that had sprouted pharmaceutical arms. Vasella knew his company's future was in pharmaceuticals. Sandoz had already divested most of its chemicals business; Ciba would be required to do the same...
...about knocking heads together. By the time he was done, 12,500 people had been laid off; an $80 million venture fund helped ex-employees with good ideas start businesses. He got the unions to accept performance-based compensation, a concept new to Swiss industry at the time. "Ex-Sandoz people say there is more freedom," says Novartis' elected employee representative Kathrin Amacker. "Ex-Ciba people say there is more drive and deadline consciousness...
Vasella keeps a keen eye on his cherished drug business from an elegant second-floor office in the old Sandoz headquarters. On a counter behind his black leather chair are a pair of ancient Egyptian vases, a sword from the Han dynasty and a large blue-green bust of Buddha from the Tang dynasty. An avid collector of Oriental art, he recently bought a 13th century Tibetan statue of Buddha made of gilded bronze, which he keeps at his home in Zug. "I talk to him sometimes," says Vasella, "and I say, 'You know, I like you better than Jesus...