Isak has enjoyed a hugely successful season with the Magpies, with his 22 league goals leaving him in second position on the Premier League goalscoring charts behind Mo Salah.
The Sweden international has established himself as one of the most highly-rated forwards in world football, resulting in a flurry of transfer talk linking him with a possible move away from Tyneside this summer.
The likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona have all been linked with the 25-year-old, who is contracted to Newcastle until the summer of 2028.
The Newcastle hierarchy are willing to enter into talks about a potential new deal, with Howe adamant the club cannot afford to lose Isak if they want to continue progressing in the next few years.
“He’s (Isak) not for sale from my perspective,” said the Newcastle boss. “I want to build a squad, and I want the strongest squad possible for next season.
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“There is a lot to look forward to here, hopefully. The end of the season is crucial for us. I think we have a strong squad and if we can add players for the first time in a few windows, that will make a massive, massive difference for us. That’s what I’m focusing on, not the other way around.”
Isak has not looked at his sharpest in the last few games, and while he successfully converted a penalty to open the scoring in last weekend’s win over Ipswich, he is still working his way back to his peak levels after suffering from a niggling groin problem for most of last month.
“He’s still scoring important goals for us and that’s never lost on me,” said Howe. “None more so than the penalty last week. You would probably be expected to score a penalty, but that was a key moment in the game, 0-0 against Ipswich when we needed him to be really cool, do his job and score the goal. Which he did.
“I’d say we haven’t found a way to get him involved in the game as much, certainly against Ipswich we didn’t. Second half, he came alive to a degree, but I think there is more to come from Alex than he has shown in recent weeks.
“But we are working towards that. You have to be mindful he has had a couple of little niggles in his groin and that limited his ability to train. He has trained fine this week and has looked good. He is a difference maker and we need him at 100 per cent.”
