Novartis’ simplified strategy takes shape as the company seeks former Bristol Myers CEO as chair

No­var­tis ap­pears head­ed in the right di­rec­tion now that San­doz has been spun out, op­er­a­tions have been stream­lined and the Swiss com­pa­ny is re­port­ing high­er-than-ex­pect­ed sales for sev­er­al med­i­cines.

Next up is a new board chair, po­ten­tial­ly for­mer Bris­tol My­ers Squibb CEO Gio­van­ni Caforio if share­hold­ers ac­cept his nom­i­na­tion.

The phar­ma’s stock $NVS was up about 3% on Tues­day af­ter the com­pa­ny raised its out­look for the year. That’s a “sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive sur­prise” in No­var­tis’ first-quar­ter up­date, Jef­feries an­a­lyst Pe­ter Welford wrote in a note. At the end of last week, the stock was down about 7% for the year.

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