Novartis said in August that it plans to spin off its generics unit Sandoz to sharpen its focus on its patented prescription medicines. The chief executive of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis on Thursday warned the coronavirus pandemic will likely settle into an endemic phase and renewed calls for policymakers to sufficiently finance pandemic preparedness. "If you look over the last two years, we have populations that have built up immunity, you have a virus that's continuing to make shifts, but I think what we're going to settle into is more of an endemic environment with respect to coronaviruses and the Covid virus specifically," Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Narasimhan, who has previously warned that future pandemics are bound to happen, made clear that world leaders must learn from the coronavirus crisis to be in a better place for future pandemics. "I think what is really important now is we turn our attention to pandemic preparedness for the future," Narasimhan said.

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