IVAX To Distribute Letter To Shareholders

Business Wire, August 16, 2002

Business Editors/Health & Medical Writers

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 16, 2002

IVAX Corporation (AMEX:IVX) (LSE:IVX.L) will distribute a general letter to shareholders, the text of which follows.

August 16, 2002

Dear Fellow Shareholders:

As you know, we recently reported earnings for the second quarter of 2002 and are quite pleased to have resumed the upward trend to which we had become accustomed over the last several years. This results from the steady development of most parts of our business even though paclitaxel sales are no longer an important contributor.

Because of the diverse nature of our business - a diversity that has been a constant strategic goal of management - we thought it worthwhile to underscore certain elements of our present business we consider to be of importance.

IVAX PHARMACEUTICALS

Our U.S. brand equivalent business is quite good; paclitaxel aside, net sales for the first 6 months were 15% greater than last year's. Pricing has, in general, been firm, but lower prices for certain products along with greater unit demand for these and for recently approved products have put pressure on manufacturing capacity. This is, in a way, good news, but back-orders can occur which sometimes prevent us from delivering the high level of customer service for which we strive in all our units. We are actively working on several approaches to increasing our production capacity, which could accelerate the future growth of this business unit. We continue to receive our share of product approvals in the U.S. and, of course, are active in submitting new applications.

IVAX LABORATORIES

We continue to invest in our U.S. proprietary business. In order to build the sales of our recently acquired products, Nasarel(R), to treat rhinitis, and QVAR(R), to treat asthma, we have been building a strong sales force. Richard Denness, the President of IVAX Laboratories, has recently been joined by Mason Gervasi as National Sales Director, Derek Kish as Director of Marketing, and Glen Oneidas, as Director of Managed Care. All bring to IVAX a record of great success in previous positions. Although presently available products have great growth potential, those presently under development may have far greater potential and, once they are approved for marketing, the national sales force we are building will permit their commercialization without delay.

LATIN AMERICA

Our strategy to expand in Latin America has proven to be wise. In spite of a serious currency devaluation in Argentina, sales and profits for the region in dollar terms contributed significantly to our consolidated revenues and profits. We are fortunate to have superb country managers in each case. In Argentina, the devaluation was partially offset by greater operating efficiency and price increases. In Venezuela, a currency devaluation was more than offset by price increases resulting in continued strong profit growth. In Chile, sales and earnings continue to be strong. In Mexico our new General Manager, Vincenzo D'Elia, is rapidly expanding our private sector business while we actively add newly approved products to compete in government tenders. Pedro Morfin and Arturo Garza, serving as business development assistants to Roberto Prego, our Vice President for Latin America, have made important contributions to this effort which should be reflected in future financial results.

IVAX UK

Frank Condella, our new General Manager in the UK, brings great experience in all aspects of the pharmaceutical business to this position. His mission is to stimulate sales while cutting costs by operating with greater efficiency. This market has significant growth potential.

IVAX FRANCE

Our strategy for France is to build our own company. We have a new general manager, Stephane Joly, a rising star in the industry, to build a proprietary as well as brand equivalent business. For starters, we have purchased a group of product registrations from Merck, France, which we will start commercializing in September. In addition, we will expand the marketing of our own recently approved proprietary respiratory products. This approach, though providing slower growth, avoids the larger investments required for acquisitions.

IVAX CZECH REPUBLIC

Our Czech unit is doing well in all of its markets. It sells in all of the former Soviet republics as well as in the Czech and Slovak republics and has been successfully introducing our proprietary respiratory products as they are approved in various countries. Being one of the few manufacturers of the anti-transplant rejection drug, cyclosporin, IVAX Czech will begin to realize even greater sales and profit growth as our generic version of the final dosage form of this important product is approved in markets around the world. In the U.S., we expect approval for our generic cyclosporin in the near future. Our administrative offices in Prague experienced outages of electricity and telephone service during the recent floods but there was no serious damage. Our manufacturing facility in Opava was not effected.