Novartis

Novartis' Suffern plant is the Swiss company's sole pharmaceutical production facility in the U.S.

Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland.

History

Novartis was created in 1996 from the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz Laboratories, both Swiss companies with long individual histories. At the time of the merger, it was the largest corporate merger in history. Taking into account the histories of the merger partners, the company's history stretches back to 1758.

In 1998, the company made headlines with its biotechnology licensing agreement with the UC Berkeley Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. Critics of the agreement were concerned that the agreement would diminish academic objectivity or that it would lead to the commercialization of genetically modified plants. The agreement expired in 2003. There are indications which point to the commercialization of genetically modified ingredients in Novartis' products, at least in Spain (source: Greenpeace Spain).

Novartis combined its agricultural division with that of AstraZeneca to create Syngenta in November of 2000.

Sandoz is best known for synthesizing LSD in 1938. They later marketed it (under the trade name Delysid) as a psychiatric miracle cure from 1947 through the early 1960s. Today, Sandoz is a producer of generics.

On April 20, 2006, Novartis acquired Emeryville, CA based Chiron Corporation. Chiron formerly consisted of 3 business units: Chiron Vaccines and Chiron Blood Testing, which are combining to form a new business unit called Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, and Chiron BioPharmaceuticals which will be integrated into Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

External links

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