STA, 1 October 2019 - Lek, the Slovenian subsidiary of Swiss multinational Novartis, has announced phasing out the production of antibiotics in Slovenia's Prevalje in two years' time and moving it to neighbouring Austria. In the meantime, Prevalje will become one of the two locations of Novartis's emerging global centre for technical operations. 

The news comes a month after the company said it would not expand production in the northern town of Prevalje despite having just built a new facility there.

Along with Hyderabad in India, Prevalje will become one of the two locations of Novartis's new global centre which will support the multinational's entire production network, Lek's new director general Robert Ljoljo said on Tuesday.

"The centre will be a hub for logistics, the supply chain, purchases, quality control, production science and technology, and engineering," he told the press after today's meeting with employees.

The new centre in Slovenia will employ "several hundred people", mostly experts in logistics, quality control and production science and technology, he explained.

He said that by assuming an additional role within Novartis, Lek was consolidating its presence in Slovenia and "pledges to remain in Koroška".

All Prevalje workers will be given a chance to retrain for new jobs, explained Roman Burja, director of Antiinfektivi Prevalje, the name of Lek's Prevalje company.

As production is being phased out in the coming two years, new jobs will be created gradually and the production will be gradually moved to Austria's Kundl, he added.

Lek has 250 employees and another 70 agency workers at Antiinfektivi Prevalje.

Production has already been suspended and the employees are on a paid leave, coming to meetings with their bosses to discuss the company's future plans for Prevalje.

Lek managers also met the local authorities, with Prevalje Mayor Matic Tasič hoping "they realise in Ljubljana that Prevalje could well be the seat of the new centre".

Ljolja meanwhile also said that TAB Mežica, a local maker of starter batteries for cars and industrial batteries, was interested in buying the recently-built Lek production facility.

A letter of intent has already been signed, he said, but would not disclose any other details.

Lek also expects some of its Antiinfektivi Prevalje employees to get jobs at TAB, which is planning to branch out into production of lithium-ion batteries.

STA, 17 February 2019 - Innovation is the main engine of Novartis's growth and Slovenia will continue to play a crucial role in innovative technologies, chairman of Novartis-owned pharma company Lek, Zvone Bogdanovski, told the STA in an interview. He highlighted Lek's centre for the production of active substances for innovative medicines in Mengeš.

The pharmaceutical industry is undergoing many changes due to digitalisation and population ageing, and Novartis is responding with a new strategy that focusses on the core business, optimisation, investment in ground-breaking transformative therapies and increasing profitability, Bogdanovski said.

Novartis, which owns Lek, Novartis Pharma Services and Sandoz in Slovenia, is betting on innovation. The Swiss multinational has decided to focus on individualised therapies - cell and gene therapy, and the radionuclide therapy used in cancer treatment, which are costly but effective.

"That's the future, not just for Novartis, but for the entire pharmaceutical industry," the Lek CEO said, adding that the future was also in digitalisation underpinned by big-data analysis, artificial intelligence and biological simulations, which could gradually replace clinical studies.

Novartis's generics division, Sandoz, aims to become a leading producer of generic biological drugs, differentiated generic drugs, drugs with added value and a leader in digital therapeutics, Bogdanovski said.

Since competition in generics is tough, "we won't play where we're not competitive, it does not make sense to slowly wither away."

Bogdanovski believes specialised products with high added value produced on a lower scale are the future. "We're not running away from basic generics, we're only shifting our focus."

He gave a drug that was developed in Prevalje last year, a child-friendly, rapidly dissolving Amoksiklav pill, as an example of Sandoz's drug with high added value. "These are the things we'll be working on in the future," he said.

"The pressure on prices is a global fact, so we're increasing our efficiency and productivity in Slovenia as well."

Sandoz and Novartis appreciate the Slovenian know-how and experience. "So far, we've proved we can master certain ground-breaking technologies and contribute to further growth."

Bogdanovski pointed to the construction of the EUR 38m facility for the production of new biological drugs in Mengeš north of Ljubljana, which is to become operational in a year and a half. "This puts us on Novartis's map as a centre for biotechnology."

Ljubljana boasts one of Sandoz's leading development centres. "It's the largest and best equipped development centre that Sandoz has. The knowledge of the experts working there is exceptional. The centre creates more than 20 new molecules a year and launches them around the world. In recent years, we're talking about over a hundred of the most demanding new drugs."

In Prevalje, where Sandoz has a production facility for its flagship product Amoksiklav, a new factory has been built, but is currently on hold. The decision on the continuation of the project in Prevalje has not been made yet but everything should be clear in the coming months.

Last year, two famous brands of Lek's over-the-counter drugs, Persen and Neopersen, were sold to Alvogen, a US pharmaceutical company, but Bogdanovski could not speak of any other potential sales.

"Sandoz's focus is on biosimilars, crucial generic products with high added value, so on the areas we are good at, where we have a competitive edge and cover the key therapeutic areas."

Bogdanovski also said that the sale of Persen and Neopersen and the separation of the generics section in the US were not in preparation for the sale of Sandoz.

While he would not reveal last year's results of Novartis in Slovenia, Bogdanovski said that both revenue and profit were projected to have increased.

With more than 70 drugs in haematology, oncology, cardiology, immunology, dermatology, neurology, pulmonology and ophthalmology, Novartis held a 14.8% market share on the Slovenian pharmaceuticals market last year.

"We're second biggest provider of generic prescription drugs and we're the leader in over-the-counter drugs," Bogdanovski said.

Novartis employed 4,152 people in Slovenia last year, which is 370 more than in 2017. In the last seven years, the headcount increased by more than 2,000.

All our stories on the pharmaceutical industry in Slovenia can be found here

STA, 30 January 2019 - The Slovenian pharmaceutical company Lek, a subsidiary of the Swiss giant Novartis, has announced that it had a very successful 2018 compared to the set objectives, while failing to reveal concrete business results. It did say that it employed an additional 370 people last year to increase the workforce to 4,085.

Lek, which is headquartered in Ljubljana, said in a press release on Wednesday that it was expanding the range of production of healing agents for innovative pharmaceuticals.

Last year, the company launched at the Mengeš location the production of three healing agents for innovative pharmaceuticals, which will enter the market in the coming years.

At other locations in Slovenia, Lek launched the final phases of production of innovative biopharmaceuticals, the press release says.

In Mengeš, located some 10 km north of Ljubljana, the company is building a EUR 38m facility for the production of biological agents, which "will boost the role of the location as a key Novartis centre for biotechnology".

Since 2003, Novartis has invested more than EUR 2.3bn in Slovenia, with more than half intended for development, and the rest to modernisation and expansion of the production facilities.

Lek also announced that it employed an additional 370 people last year, with the number of employees standing at 4,085 at the end of 2018, while "continuing to optimise and adjust the production network in Slovenia."

"By increasing the market share to 30.1% in 2018, Lek has solidified its position as the second largest provider of generic drugs in Slovenia and strengthened its position of the market leader in the non-prescription drug segment," the release reads, the full text of which can be read here.

STA, 17 December 2018 - Swiss group Kuehne + Nagel inaugurated on Monday one of its largest pharmaceutical logistics centres near Ljubljana's international airport. The 88,000 square-metre complex, which was launched earlier in the autumn, has almost 38,000 square metres of warehouse space.

Kuehne + Nagel did not reveal which company it is servicing, but it is known this is Swiss multinational Novartis, for which this is the largest warehouse in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

The centre is designed for storing and distributing end products and materials for the pharmaceutical industry around the world. Drugs from it travel to 120 countries around the world, mostly by sea and land, but some also by air.

The centre is currently operating at some 70% of its capacity, but should be in full swing by the end of March.

As the Swiss logistics group expects further growth in Slovenia, it has already started building a new high-tech distribution centre nearby.

The centre will be built in three stages, with the first one encompassing some 4,500 square metres of warehouse areas.

Since it does not require controlled temperature and humidity, it is seen as less demanding than the pharmaceutical complex.

Borut Vrviščar, the CEO of Kuehne + Nagel Slovenija, did not want to disclose the value of the investments as he addressed reporters today.

But he did say the group's Slovenian subsidiary planned two-digit growth as well as growth in the number of employees.

There are currently 180 employees working in Brnik, but the figure is expected to rise to around 250 by the end of 2019.

Well-trained and motivated staff part of the appeal of Slovenia

Hansjoerg Rodi, regional manager at Kuehne + Nagel Europe, said that well-trained and motivated staff made Slovenia a good market for investments.

He explained Kuehne + Nagel had decided to invest in the Brnik facility because of a certain deal, but the group now saw new opportunities for growth in the pharmaceutical industry and in other areas, so it kept investing.

Meanwhile, Vrviščar said a new logistics centre Austria's Cargo-partner is building near Kuehne + Nagel's complex was no direct competition as the Austrians were involved in a different segment of the logistics industry.

However, he said they would all benefit from the Slovenian government building a rail link to Ljubljana's Jože Pučnik Airport.

Kuehne + Nagel's new facilities are built by Austria's developer Invest4See and then rented by the Swiss logistics group.

STA, 5 July 2018 - Drug maker Krka posted a net profit of EUR 101.4m for the first half of the year, up 11%, on the back of sales that reached an all-time high of EUR 680.5m, an increase of 4% on the year before, the company revealed at Thursday's annual general meeting. 

STA, 23 May 2018 - Slovenia's pharma group Krka posted EUR 338.3m in sales in the first quarter of the year, an all-time quarterly high and a 5% increase on the same period last year. Net profit was up by 16% to EUR 49.4m.