We listen to the needs of people and know how to lend a helping hand

  • On the occasion of the 14th Community Partnership Day, 650 Novartis employees in Slovenia are coming together in support of good causes, as a way of paying back society and the environment by participating in 26 volunteering activities and projects.
  • Over the 14 years of organizing Community Partnership Days, the employees of Novartis Slovenia have dedicated more than 33,000 hours, and helped more than 60 different organisations and more than 12,000 people.  
  • Over 23,900 associates of Novartis across the globe are taking part in the 22nd global Community Partnership Day initiative. 
25. 4. 2018

Volunteering activities, organised by Novartis as part of the global Community Partnership Day initiative, are fully underway. From April 16 to May 15, our employees have been offering their time to help individuals and organisations across Slovenia, and making a difference in society and the environment where they live and work. As many as 650 volunteers have joined this year’s Community Partnership Day, providing support by volunteering in their local communities.

Novartis in Slovenia has been organising the Community Partnership Day for the 14th consecutive year, thereby joining its colleagues across six continents and 58 countries supporting non-profit and local organisations. A number of other Slovenian companies followed our example, which is also one of the purposes of encouraging corporate volunteering.

“At Novartis, we are committed to improving the quality of people’s lives daily, and the Community Partnership Day is an important opportunity to make a difference in our local environment,” said Zvone Bogdanovski, President of the Board of Management of Lek and Novartis Country President Slovenia. “In these days, the associates are participating together with local organisations in various projects and activities, in total they will dedicate this year more than 5,200 hours of combined community service. I myself take part in volunteering activities every year, because I think it is important to help, to lend a helping hand to those in need. 

Our employees take part in various activities and spend time with the elderly, donate blood, collect food, maintain the surroundings of schools and other institutions, organise trips for children with special needs, and much more. 

The voluntary activities in Novartis Slovenia started on April 16 with fundraising, and continued with preparing aid packages for Ana’s Star and taking the asylum seekers to visit the House of Experiments, followed by planting trees in Žiri, and a blood donation session in Murska Sobota. The activities will conclude on May 15 with a sports tournament for the residents of the VDC INCE Mengeš. Novartis employees will assist in maintaining the SAFY holiday resorts Pacug and Kranjska Gora, help maintain the grounds and premises of the Mali Dom in Šiška (Training, Occupation and Care Center Dolfka Boštjančič), the Red Cross health resort in Debeli rtič, the Special Education Center Janez Levec on Dečkova street in Ljubljana, the Mengeš Kindergarten and the animal shelter in Horjul; visit the residents from the Ljubljana, Mengeš, Lendava, and Prevalje homes for the elderly, and donate blood also in Ljubljana and Slovenj Gradec. In addition, they will paint the fishing log cabin at the Češnjevek pond and clear its surroundings; landscape the grounds of the Ozara center in Lendava; organise a sports day for children at the Lendava Bilingual Primary School II, and cook lunch for the residents of the Altra Center in Prevalje. Together with children with special needs attending the Roje Primary School, they will visit Postojna cave, take a boat trip on the Ljubljanica river together with patients from the brain injury rehabilitation center Mavrica (Training, Occupation and Care Center Dolfka Boštjančič,), and give a helping hand to one of the associates in Prevalje by cleaning the ground around his home. 

Helping others is a fundamental part of our operations. The Novartis initiative that started as a one-day event has now grown into a month-long range of activities with which Novartis has set a good example for other companies in Slovenia. We encourage employees and enable them to dedicate their working time to selected activities and to fully focus on them. 

“Only through cooperation can we achieve a meaningful coexistence, understanding, and harmonious life. With this in mind, we have been joining forces for 14 years, fostering volunteering practice. By volunteering our time, either with work or just by listening and talking, we do something good for the others as well as for ourselves. Helping our fellow man always awakes special feelings and charges us with energy, therefore we are glad to be able to make a difference every year. We are pleased that we have established genuine relationships with our local communities that we have been nurturing for many years. No doubt we will continue to foster these friendly ties also in the future,” said Katarina Klemenc, Novartis Country Communications Head Slovenia.

This year’s volunteering days were once again held as part of the Novartis global initiative commemorating the formation of Novartis in 1996, aiming to encourage employees to look around and lend a helping hand at the local level to those who need support.

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Novartis is the leading provider of medicines in Slovenia, where Lek, Novartis Pharma Services and Sandoz, operate. Together we are building and maintaining the reputation of a dynamic, ethical, and trusted pharmaceutical company. Lek develops, manufactures, and markets effective, safe, and high quality medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients. With our knowledge, quality, and experience we have gained an important role in Novartis' organizational structure, especially in the Novartis Technical Operations, Global Drug Development, Novartis Business Services, and the generic division Sandoz. We are the leading Sandoz development center, and one of the key development sites for technologically complex projects. We invest a great deal in the development, education, and training of our employees. Novartis invested in Slovenia more than EUR 2 billion since 2003. More than half of this investment has been devoted to development, and the rest to modernize and expand our production capacities.

Sandoz is a global leader in generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals. As a division of the Novartis Group, our purpose is to discover new ways to improve and extend people’s lives. We contribute to society’s ability to support growing healthcare needs by pioneering novel approaches to help people around the world access high-quality medicine. Our portfolio of approximately 1000 molecules, covering all major therapeutic areas, accounted for 2016 sales of USD 10.1 billion. In 2016, our products reached more than 500 million patients and we aspire to reach one billion. Sandoz is headquartered in Holzkirchen, in Germany’s Greater Munich area.
Sandoz is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Sandoz_global at http://twitter.com/Sandoz_Global (link is external).

Novartis provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, cost-saving generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals and eye care. Novartis has leading positions globally in each of these areas. In 2017, the Group achieved net sales of USD 49.1 billion, while R&D throughout the Group amounted to approximately USD 9.0 billion. Novartis Group companies employ approximately 122,000 full-time-equivalent associates. Novartis products are sold in approximately 155 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com.

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This press release contains statements and conclusions based on projections of Lek’s future business operations. These estimates are derived from the best information currently available. In case these forecasts prove unreliable, the actual results could prove different from those projected.

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For additional information contact:
Katarina Klemenc
Corporate Communications 
Lek Pharmaceuticals d. d.
Phone: +386 1 580 22 43
Fax: +386 1 580 24 32
katarina.klemenc@sandoz.com