Guess who Novartis acquired a few years ago according to the San Francsico Business times- CHIRON! This as you may recall is the bastards whose unsanitary laboratory conditions forced a massive flu shot recall a few years ago, leading to a nationwide shortage.

Chiron is also the same firm whose offices in California were bombed by the ALF years ago(before the acquisiton) by ALF after refusing to swear off contracts with HLS.

Here is a story about Novartis sending those Chiron execs packing after buying up their firm-one of the few good things Novartis's business bosses have done:

sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2006/05/01/story1.html