Giovanni Caforio
Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to welcome you for the first time in my role as Chair of the Board of Directors to our Annual General Meeting in Basel’s St. Jakobshalle. By fortunate coincidence, this is also our 30th Annual General Meeting, which makes me extremely proud to be part of a jubilee year for Novartis.
As many of you may have seen, we have organized a small history exhibition in the hallway, which you may also visit after the AGM. The exhibition not only sheds light on some of our company’s biggest achievements during the past 3 decades, it also reflects the long and successful history of our predecessor companies, Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz, which many of you know very well and may have worked for yourselves. We are proud of this legacy which provides us with a strong foundation on which we are building our future.
Let me now also welcome the attending members of the Board of Directors and of the Executive Committee. Also present in the hall are representatives of our auditor, KPMG AG; the public notary, Ms. Andrea Schmutz; and the independent proxy, Mr. Peter Andreas Zahn. The Annual General Meeting was convened by publication in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce No. 24 on February 5, 2026, with a complete list of agenda items announced.
I note that proper and timely notice was given for today’s Annual General Meeting. Therefore, resolutions may be passed on all items on the agenda. Unless the law requires otherwise, the General Meeting passes resolutions and elections