Sandoz to build a biosimilar technical development center in Slovenia

Sandoz, the global generic and biosimilar medicines of Swiss pharma giant Novartis (NOVN: VX), today announced an investment of around $90 million at its site in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to establish a dedicated Sandoz Biopharma Development Center by 2026.

Along with its financial results on Tuesday, Novartis announced that its board of directors has unanimously endorsed the previously-announced separation of Sandoz to create an independent company by way of a 100% spin-off, scheduled to occur early in the fourth quarter of 2023. Sandoz is planned to be listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, with an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program in the USA. Sandoz posted net sales of $2.4 billion (+5%, +8% cc), in the second quarter of this year, with $531 million of revenue coming from biosimilars.

With this investment, the Ljubljana site will become one of the key locations for biosimilar product development at Sandoz. The new site will lead to the creation of about 200 new full-time jobs and further strengthen the company's capabilities in end-to-end drug substance and drug product development of biosimilars.