Vasella quits, Swine flu is on the way out and Clariant cuts more jobs

The swine flu pandemic is apparently running out of steam. Swiss Health officials reckon that swine flu will have largely gone from the country within the next couple of weeks, along with the normal strains of seasonal flu. In the second week of this year, after about 13 weeks of pandemic, doctors in the national notification system recorded 8 suspected cases of flu out of 1,000 consultations. The peak for cases was in December.

An estimated 1.5 million people in Switzerland have been infected with the virus so far but in most cases the illness was mild. 18 people died from the disease, most of whom were elderly or already suffering from a chronic disease. The Swiss government bought 13 million doses of vaccine to contain a swine flu pandemic that luckily never happened. However, it is estimated that only one in five of the 7.7 million Swiss residents took advantage of the free vaccinations.

The FT reports that Daniel Vasella is stepping down as chief executive of Novartis to concentrate on his role as chairman. Up to now he was both chairman and CEO, which many saw as too much power for one pair of hands and certainly too much money. Confounding his critics, Novartis has just announced a 10 billion dollar profit for last year on sale which increased by 44 billion dollars.

Novartis are holding a press conference later today to explain why Mr Vasella has decided to step down from the top job and to introduce Joe Jimenez, Mr Vasella's American successor.

And staying with business in Basel, the Swiss chemicals company, Clariant, has confirmed a newspaper report that it will shed a further 500 jobs. The Basel-based firm cut more than 3,000 jobs last year, and at the end of 2009 had fewer than 18,000 staff worldwide. A Clariant spokesman confirmed that employees at Swiss plants could also be affected by the cuts.

Clariant, like many chemical firms, has been hit hard by problems in key markets like cars and building and so far has closed factories in France, Britain and Mexico.