ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG (S:NOVN) reiterated its 2016 group outlook when releasing on Thursday updated 2015 financial data under a new divisional structure it had announced in January.
"Group net sales and core operating income in 2016 are expected to be broadly in line with the prior year (in constant currencies (cc)), after absorbing the impact of generic competition. Generic competition impact on sales is expected to be as much as $3.2 billion compared to $2.2 billion in 2015," it said.
"Excluding Gleevec/Glivec generic impact, we would expect group net sales to grow mid-single digit (cc) and group core operating income to grow in the mid-teens (cc)."