With San­doz con­tin­u­ing to drag on No­var­tis, Vas Narasimhan says he may fi­nal­ly be ready for a sale or spin­off

Af­ter years of re­hab work aimed at get­ting San­doz in fight­ing trim to com­pete in a mar­ket over­shad­owed by de­clin­ing prices, CEO Vas Narasimhan took a big step to­ward pos­si­bly sell­ing or spin­ning off the gi­ant gener­ic drug play­er.

The phar­ma gi­ant flagged plans to launch a strate­gic re­view of the busi­ness in its Q3 up­date, not­ing that “op­tions range from re­tain­ing the busi­ness to sep­a­ra­tion.”

An­a­lysts have been pok­ing and prod­ding No­var­tis ex­ecs for years now as Narasimhan at­tempt­ed to re­mod­el a busi­ness that has been a drag on its per­for­mance dur­ing most of his reign in the CEO suite. The for­mer R&D chief has made it well known that he’s de­vot­ed to the in­no­v­a­tive meds side of the busi­ness, where they see the great­est po­ten­tial for growth.

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