Novartis has announced a significant increase in its financial results for the full financial year 2023 (FY2023), with its net income soaring by 62% to $8.6bn on a constant currencies (cc) basis from the previous year’s $6.04bn.
The growth was primarily attributed to a surge in operating income and one-time favourable tax impacts.
Core operating income saw an impressive 18% rise to $16.4bn, up from $14.7bn in FY 2022.
The increase was largely due to higher net sales, although partially offset by increased spending in sales, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses and research and development (R&D) investments.
Core net income followed suit, climbing by 19% to reach $13.4bn compared to $11.9bn in the previous year, again benefiting from the uptick in core operating income.
The company's net sales also experienced a healthy 10% growth, reaching $45.4bn for the full year, up from $42.2bn in FY 2022.
This was driven by a 16 percentage point increase in volume growth, despite a two-percentage-point decline due to price erosion and a four-percentage point negative impact from generic competition.
Sales growth was particularly strong for key products such as Entresto, which grew by 31%, Kesimpta by 99%, Kisqali by 75%, Pluvicto by 261% and Scemblix by 179%, all measured on a cc basis.
Operating income reflected a 39% increase to $9.8bn from $7.9bn in FY 2022.
The growth was mainly propelled by higher net sales, reduced restructuring expenses and income from legal matters, although this was partly tempered by increased impairments and higher SG&A and R&D investments.
Earnings per share (EPS) also saw a remarkable increase, growing by 70% to $4.13 from $2.77 in FY 2022.
Core EPS, which excludes certain items, stood at $6.47, marking a 25% increase from the previous year's $5.48.
Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan stated: “Novartis completed its strategic transformation into a pure-play innovative medicines company and continued its relentless pursuit of sustainable shareholder value creation. Our robust operational performance continues, with strong double-digit top and bottom-line growth, for the quarter and full year.
“We delivered ten positive Ph3 readouts on assets with significant sales potential, over the past year.
“The very strong performance of our key growth drivers and pipeline underscores the confidence in our growth (5% cc CAGR [compound annual growth rate] 2023-2028) and margin (above 40% by 2027) mid-term guidance.”
Last month, the company received the US Food and Drug Administration approval to commercially manufacture Pluvicto at its new radioligand therapy manufacturing facility.
