Alongside its third quarter results for 2019, Alcon has announced a multi-year transformation program to invest in strategic growth initiatives.
According to the company the program is designed to build on Alcon’s recent success and work in support of its long-term financial goals.
“Our momentum is strong as an independent company,” Mr David Endicott, Alcon’s CEO, said.
“We’re going to build on this success by proactively implementing a multi-year transformation program that will further simplify and streamline our processes, accelerate innovation and strengthen our commercial position. We will reinvest these savings to support new product development and launches. We expect this will drive top line growth, deliver the operating leverage described in our long-term objectives and ultimately create significant value for our customers, patients and shareholders.”
Explaining the plan in more detail during an earnings call, Endicott said 85% of the company’s sales running through a new, standardised process and it has identified a number of opportunities to rationalise and eliminate complex bureaucratic layers that were put in place when it was part of Novartis. It then plans to reinvest these savings into new product sales, development and marketing.
Alcon was spun off from Novartis in April 2019.
The company also announced positive results for the quarter. Worldwide sales increased by 6% on a constant currency basis to total US$1.8 billion (AU$2.6 b, with the results attributed to growth in the company’s advanced technology intraocular lenses, vitreoretinal, Dailies Total1 contact lens and Systane Complete eye drops.
“Our recent launches of PRECISION1 [contact lens] and PanOptix [trifocal intraocular lens] are off to a strong start, as customers show significant interest in these key products,” Endicott said.
“We also closed on a successful multi-tranche bond offering that refinanced shorter- term debt into a long-term capital structure.”
For the first nine months of the current financial year, sales totalled US$5.5 billion (AU$8.1 b), up 5% on a constant currency basis.
