Novartis AG (NVS)

PATIENTS
OUR PEOPLE
HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT
BUSINESS CONDUCT
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

"Corporate Citizenship implies many things, but in a way describes a responsible behavior of a company within society. In the end, doing the right thing also makes business sense." Daniel Vasella, M.D.

Innovation is the driving force of our company. The creativity and motivation of our people respond to the call of making a difference for patients, by addressing disease and unmet medical need.

Novartis aspires to responsible global citizenship based on our people and our corporate values, the foundations of commercial success and our high standards of business conduct. We operate within both the spirit and the letter of the law and we refuse to tolerate illegal or unethical dealings in our daily activities anywhere in the world.

We foster teamwork and trust, promoting interaction across functions and regions. We establish ambitious targets and recognize and reward high performance.

Thanks to our good results, our Corporate Citizenship program reaches millions of patients worldwide. We bring the revolution in biomedical research to bear on diseases of the developing world, and provide medicines at cost—or sometimes free—to patients who otherwise would not have had access to treatment.

Shared values and a common mission and strategy unite our 81 400 associates, and our 200 operational companies and business operations in more than 140 countries. Our progress last year—as well as our aspirations and targets for 2005—is reported in the following section.

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Commitment to Patients

Novartis endorses the right to health. We believe that each sphere of society—from government and charitable organizations, to medical professionals and business—has a role to play in support of the right to health.

Our primary and most important contribution to society is to discover, develop, produce and distribute high quality health-care products, addressing unmet medical need.

Our commitment to patients leads us to maintain one of the highest levels of research and development investment in the pharmaceutical industry, measured as a percentage of sales. Our drug development has been among the most productive of any top-tier pharmaceutical company in recent years, with 13 new medicines approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2000. Our development pipeline is widely considered one of the industry's strongest, and key development projects are on track to meet milestones in 2005.

At the same time, Novartis offers one of the broadest ranges of drug treatment options—from patent-protected, life-saving prescription medicines, to cost-effective generic products of growing importance to health-care systems, and leading self-medication brands to enhance overall health and well-being.

Medicines from Novartis help patients avoid costly hospitalization, and ease their return to normal, productive work. We enable children afflicted by disease to play with their friends again—and grandparents to hold grandchildren they might never have met without effective medical treatments.

An increasing focus on the cost of health care tends to overshadow recognition of the huge value that individuals, and society, realize from modern medicine through longer life expectancy, lower rates of infant mortality and reduced illness and disability. Novartis has embarked on a program of rigorous economic analysis to document the value of our medicines—and the scope and significance of the benefits they provide for patients and society.

As we strive to be a leading company in health care, we recognize that all our commercial activities must be pursued in a responsible way. Success in business depends on maintaining the trust of commercial partners, government authorities, patients, health-care professionals and other essential stakeholders. Our Code of Conduct is fundamental to the task of creating and maintaining such trust.