(Bloomberg) — A decade ago, Joe Jimenez was peddling ketchup and baked beans. Now he's using Microsoft Corp.'s gaming technology and embedding Google Inc. sensors in contact lenses to reinvent the world's biggest drugmaker.

As Novartis AG's chief executive, Jimenez is barreling down untested paths at the frontier of biology and digital technology to prepare for a future in which the use of smartphones and other digital devices to monitor health will be the key to getting paid.

Jimenez is also taking an axe to the empire built by his flamboyant predecessor, Daniel Vasella, with a complex asset swap worth more than $30 billion that closed this month. By offloading vaccines and adding cancer drugs, the 55-year-old former competitive swimmer is preparing Novartis for the loss of patents on medicines that make up a fifth of its sales.