Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Vasant Narasimhan: Yeah. Thanks, Stephen. I’m glad you asked that question. Our view — and we had an oral PCSK9 program, which we’ve deprioritized. We are pivoting cardiovascular research into — in Novartis and to infrequently administered SiRNAs, ASOs, et cetera, to get to — first, as you know, we have PCSK9. We have combination programs, of course, we have Lp(a), follow-on programs with various combinations. And the goal would be to say, can you get to combinations at six months or long-acting at one year, with the belief that over the last 25 years, we’ve learned that compliance to orals in this market is low. Statins are 30%, other therapeutics are in a similar range. And if we really want to tackle cardiovascular disease scale, we need to get to infrequent administration.

So we have Leqvio as a starting point. We’re going to work very hard to extend past — not get the nine to 13. But we’re anyway going to have life cycle management working on long-acting Leqvio, working on combinations with Leqvio. And our goal will be very much to have a combination siRNAs that can cover the relevant mechanisms of action for cholesterol lowering, so that patients won’t need oral drugs anymore. Because we think that’s where medicine is heading and we think that’s what siRNAs, long-acting ASOs and similar technologies can deliver. So hence, we deprioritized oral systematically on cardiovascular at Novartis and focus on this next wave of technologies and therapies.

Stephen Scala: Very interesting. Thank you.

Vasant Narasimhan: Thanks Steve. All right. Very good. Thank you all for joining, and we look forward to updating you further at quarter one. Take care.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.