CEO: Novartis plans big restructuring

On second thought, let's restructure the whole company: In October, Novartis announced some job cuts and management changes. Now, CEO Daniel Vasella (photo) says he's working on a sweeping overhaul of his company's org chart. He's not ready to disclose details, but he did tell the Wall Street Journal that he wants to remove several layers of management so that employees can make decisions more quickly.

Vasella says Novartis needs to become less bureaucratic to handle the drug industry's many challenges, which we probably don't need to name here, but will anyway: generic competition, cautious regulators, cost-conscious payers.

This second round of restructuring will involve more job cuts, Vasella says, but he didn't specify how many. More details on the plan are forthcoming by mid-December, with further info coming in February.

- read the report from the Wall Street Journal

UPDATE: Novartis announced on December 12 that it would cut 2,500 jobs. Report

ALSO: Take a look at Novartis' pipeline. Report

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