By Ludwig Burger

FRANKFURT (Reuters). Novartis predicts that sales and core operating profits will grow by a middle-single digit this year. The Swiss pharmaceuticals company is close to a decision regarding whether Sandoz should be sold or kept.

After years of reorganizing Sandoz, the pharmaceuticals firm in October suggested that Sandoz could be sold. The move comes as a result of rising drug prices.

Novartis, in Wednesday’s earnings statement reiterated its commitment to updating shareholders by 2022. It is currently exploring the sale of the drug company but also the potential option to continue the operation as an off-patent unit.

Reports have mentioned interest from private equity companies, and chief executive Vas Narasimhan said that the asset attracted interest from many suitors.

On Wednesday, CEO John McDonnell stated in a conference call that all options remain open.

“We don’t have a bias towards any of these options at the moment. We are doing the work to finish the carve-out financials to provide that to relevant parties and we’ll see what proposals come back,” the CEO said.

As a result of higher drug sales, core operating income increased by 9% to $3.8billion for the fourth quarter ended December 31. This was due to an increase in development and marketing costs.

Based on Refinitiv data, revenue from Cosentyx’s arthritis and psoriasis drugs increased 13% to $1.24 Billion, just below the average analyst expectation of $1.3 billion.

Novartis revenues from Entresto heart failure treatment grew 34% to $949million, which is in line with the consensus of the market.

It forecast Sandoz sales would be broadly in line with the 2021 level of $2.5 billion, while the division’s core operating income was expected to fall at a low-to-mid-single-digit rate.

Novartis said that although it plans to sell back as much as $15 billion of its shares by next year’s end, it would still be able to spend enough to acquire companies and technologies, fund research and make attractive dividends.

This was the 25th increase in consecutive dividends, from its conception to its current 3.3% level at 3.10 Swiss Francs (or $33.77) per share.

($1 = 0.9207 Swiss francs)