Novartis Pharma AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland with approximately 100 000 associates in 140 countries worldwide. Novartis focuses on discovering, developing and successfully marketing innovative products to prevent and cure diseases, to ease suffering and to enhance the quality of life. Our products are concentrated in the major therapeutic areas Cardiovascular and Metabolism, Oncology and Hematology, Neuroscience and Ophthalmics, Respiratory, and Immunology and Infectious Diseases. Novartis is also committed to innovative research and development of new tools for drug development, and participates in collaborative research projects with other industrial and academic participants. For example Novartis actively participates in a number of consortia and public private partnerships under the Critical Path Initiative, in the European InnoMed PredTox program for non-clinical safety assessment as well as in 31 of the already running and planned IMI projects.