Novartis’s Alcon Offers Widest Range of Eye Care Products Worldwide

Alcon, the eye care division of Novartis (NVS), provides the widest range of eye care products worldwide. The Alcon division includes surgical, ophthalmic pharmaceutical, and vision care segments. 19.8% of the company’s total revenues came from Alcon in 2015.

The Alcon segment researches, develops, manufactures, and markets eye care products. The division employs ~23,900 employees in ~75 countries. Alcon products are sold in over 180 countries. The Alcon division includes the following segments:

• surgical
• ophthalmic pharmaceutical
• vision care

Each of the above segments operates with specialized sales force and marketing support.

The surgical franchise is a market leader in global ophthalmic surgical product revenues, offering ophthalmic surgical equipment, instruments, disposable products, and intraocular lenses for surgical procedures that address cataracts, vitreoretinal conditions, glaucoma, and refractive errors. Novarits operates nine manufacturing facilities for surgical products.

The ophthalmic pharmaceuticals segment develops and markets pharmaceuticals to treat chronic and acute eye conditions, including glaucoma, elevated intraocular pressure, eye infections and inflammation, eye allergies, dry eye, and retinal diseases. There are six manufacturing facilities for ophthalmic pharmaceuticals.

The third segment of Alcon is vision care. This franchise develops and markets contact lenses and lens care products. The manufacturing facilities are based in six countries. The principal markets for the Alcon division include the United States, Canada, Latin America, Japan, and Europe.

Novartis competes with companies like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Bausch and Lomb, Pfizer (PFE), Allergan (AGN), and Abbott Medical Optics (ABT). Investors can consider the Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV), which holds about 10.4% of its total assets in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), 7.3% in Pfizer (PFE), and ~4.8% in Allergan (AGN). Investors can also consider the First Trust Value Line Dividend ETF (FVD), which holds ~0.5% of its total assets in Novartis in order to divest the risk.