Sandoz is a world leader in generic pharmaceuticals, finding innovative ways to making medicines affordable and accessible to more than 90 percent of the world’s population.
Sandoz, the generic pharmaceuticals division of Novartis, is a worldwide leader in generics. With a history of more than 120 years, Sandoz is a trusted leader with a reputation for exceptional quality. Our strategic and customer-focused approach to developing, producing and marketing high-quality affordable medicines following the loss of patent protection, has successfully made us one of the two largest and most respected generics companies worldwide. Our medicines are already available to 90 percent of people across the world and we are committed to further increasing global access to affordable healthcare.
Our comprehensive global development and production network and worldwide commercial presence are complemented by a wide range of standard and differentiated products covering all stages of the development and production processes, from basic molecules to finished medicines. This combination of specialist expertise and extensive global presence, underpinned by an unwavering commitment to quality, gives us a competitive advantage that clearly sets us apart from the competition.
By offering a broad portfolio of high-quality affordable medicines, Sandoz also contributes to the stability of healthcare systems worldwide, providing significant savings that can be used for the funding of costlier novel therapies, thus encouraging continued pharmaceutical innovation. In this way, Sandoz represents a key pillar of the overall Novartis strategy of offering an all-inclusive range of medicines to patients, physicians and healthcare providers along the entire healthcare spectrum. Novartis is currently the only company with a leading global position in both patent-protected and generic pharmaceuticals, allowing Sandoz to benefit from the cross-divisional flow of specialist technical, clinical and regulatory expertise.
Sandoz offers a broad portfolio of approximately 1 000 high-quality molecules, which ranges from standard generics to complex value-added products. We feel it is important to provide our customers with a diverse product range and breadth in selection, allowing for a true “one stop shop” experience. Our generic products range in complexity from oral solids, gels and patch technologies, to complex injectables, inhalers and state-of-the-art biosimilars, a newly emerging field in which Sandoz is the pioneer and global leader.
We are also a leading global provider and producer of essential anti-infective medicines, predominantly antibiotics, while other key product groups include cardiovascular medicines, treatments for central nervous system disorders, gastrointestinal medicines, oncology and respiratory therapies, as well as medications for blood and blood forming organ disorders.
Sandoz stands out from the competition through its ability to develop and produce complex differentiated products, which by value already comprise well over one third of its portfolio.
This differentiated portfolio, which goes well beyond standard generics, is the result of clearly focusing on and understanding our customers – but also even more importantly, anticipating their evolving needs. These value-added products predominantly focus on the biosimilar, oncology injectable and respiratory fields, three key pillars to our strategy of differentiation, where we already have or aspire to a global leadership position. Sandoz’s expertise in these complex products is based on decades of experience, particularly in producing intermediates for third parties, with early successes including the first-ever oral penicillin in 1951 and one of the first recombinant proteins, an interferon, in 1980.
Leading the way in the development and production of differentiated generics, Sandoz was also the first company to develop and market follow-on versions of highly complex biopharmaceuticals, becoming a true pioneer and global leader in the field of biosimilars. By offering these complex medicines, we are helping to make quality healthcare affordable for all patients and to slow the increase in escalating global healthcare costs.
Today, Sandoz is the second-largest and one of the most reputable generics companies in the world, employing approximately 23 000 people across the globe. We have more than ten major global development centers and a worldwide network of more than 30 manufacturing sites, with a presence in more than 130 countries. While we adopt a global perspective to create synergies and greater value for our patients and stakeholders, we also believe that a local approach is instrumental to delivering them, allowing us to be close to patients, doctors and business partners everywhere in the world.