Alcon takes a new look at ophthalmic pharma space and marketing, post Novartis spinout and raft of acquisitions

When Alcon eye care spun out of Novartis as an independent company, the ophthalmology pharmaceuticals business stayed at the Big Pharma. For Alcon, though, it was an “obvious” gap in its eye care and eye health expertise, so it went out and began acquiring and building out a prescription eye drug portfolio.

Now four years after a handful of acquisitions — including a $770 million deal last August for Aerie Pharmaceuticals with two eye prescription meds plus a late-stage dry eye disease candidate — Alcon is stepping out with new marketing around its growing pharma portfolio.

This week, the company is rolling out new content and awareness work to highlight the need for early diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma.

Ian Bell

“We think of ourselves as an ophthalmic company,” said Ian Bell, president of global business and innovation. “We’re the leaders in most of the markets we operate in — our contact lens portfolio, our dry portfolio, our ophthalmic surgery equipment. But we had kind of stepped away from the pharma space because we got acquired by Novartis. … It was one of the obvious areas that we weren’t in as an ophthalmic company and we’ve been looking for a way back in to utilize our expertise and build on that with Aerie employees and its R&D particularly to get us back in that space that makes a lot of sense.”

Alcon’s glaucoma effort includes a new video on its website and social media posts on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn encouraging early diagnoses and professional care, linked to an eye doctor locator tool.

Is Bell concerned about a future where Alcon drugs would compete with Novartis? Not really, he said. Novartis has signaled prescription ophthalmology is no longer a key priority — it sold off five prescription eye drugs last year to Harrow — and may actually represent an advantage for Alcon.

“What’s interesting about it is we see (Novartis) stepping away and Allergan got acquired by AbbVie so less of a focus for them, so there’s possibly a market opportunity there. We kind of like our odds in that space as well. We’re interested in products that could have revenues of a couple hundred million whereas Big Pharma is looking at $1 billion. There may be a sweet spot for us where we’re able to acquire a few of those types of molecules and potentially some R&D capability that goes with it.”

Alcon’s eye care professional customers are on board, Bell said, adding that customers agree that Alcon’s expertise in the eye space and “understanding the needs of customers and helping meet those for years” is its hallmark. His goal? Working to “apply that back into the pharma space.”

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