Born and bred in Fribourg, Switzerland, Vasella had experience with medicine all too early.
Merging these two underachievers gave Vasella the excuse he needed to vastly alter the business.
Vasella: Certainly, the leadership dimension is less developed in most people and most businesses.
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But Vasella has developed a reputation for finding previously overlooked winners in company laboratories.
Strasbourg, France-based Aventis could wind up being what Vasella has been waiting for: an eager seller.
On the surface Vasella is unimposing and soft-voiced, a gentleman from head to toe.
Vasella was intrigued: He knew from Novartis' tests of Gleevec that kinases were good drug targets.
Novartis Chief Daniel Vasella says that an excessive focus on mass-market bestsellers can backfire.
Mr Vasella is due to step down after the company's annual shareholders' meeting on 22 February.
BBC: Novartis scraps payout to departing boss Daniel Vasella
But Vasella didn't tell either of the candidates what was going on until very recently.
Vasella, 47, knew that he had inherited a merger of weakness, as most deals in the drug industry are.
The company also appointed Joe Jimenez as its new chief executive, replacing Daniel Vasella effective Feb. 1.
"We will be able to characterize patients even more specifically, according to their genetic makeup, " Vasella says.
Humer may be dead set against a deal, but Novartis Chief Executive Daniel Vasella is a patient man.
When the Novartis deal closed in December 1996, Vasella, then 43, assumed the top job as Moret retired.
If Novartis did want to intervene in Roche's affairs, it could raise its stake above 33%, Vasella said.
Mr Vasella was chief executive of Novartis from 1996 until 2010, and has also been chairman since 1999.
BBC: Novartis scraps payout to departing boss Daniel Vasella
Vasella told Jimenez he was probably the choice around Christmas, and the decision was not finalized until Monday.
However, this is a compensation for which Daniel Vasella has to do nothing.
FORBES: The Novartis Board Insulted Shareholders With Hush Money For Dan Vasella
Vasella's toughest battle was to bring the marketing department into the 21st century.
But with patients clamoring for the drug, Novartis Chief Executive Daniel Vasella intervened.
But Vasella found a few hidden gems and rescued others from laboratory oblivion.
By coincidence, in early 2000 Boger received an overture from Novartis Chief Daniel Vasella, who was interested in collaborating.
Vasella says he offered him another job, but Reinhardt chose to leave instead.
Conditions are improving, says Mr Vasella, and are now tolerable, if not ideal.
For the moment, Vasella has what he has needed for some time--another potential blockbuster to complement Novartis' hypertension drug Diovan.
Vasella grew up to become a doctor, taking a hospital post in Bern, but by his mid-30s he was restless.
"I think there are dynamics in this family which need to turn out, and sometimes this takes years, " says Vasella.
Vasella also hopes to come up with another Gleevec ( see FORBES cover story, Feb. 5, 2001).
Over the last decade, no chief executive of a big pharmaceutical company performed as well as Daniel Vasella of Novartis.
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