Sandoz makes further investment in key Austrian manufacturing facility

Sandoz, the soon to be divested generic and biosimilar medicines business of Swiss pharm giant Novartis (NOVN; VX), today announced an additional investment of 50 million euros ($49.5 million) to support increased European manufacturing capacity for finished dosage form (FDF) penicillins, the leading class of antibiotics worldwide.

The new commitment follows plans announced last year to invest more than 100 million euros in new manufacturing technology for production of oral amoxicillin active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) at Kundl, Austria. This investment will increase manufacturing capacity for FDFs of amoxicillin and other key penicillin products.

Sandoz, which generated net sales of $6.9 billion in the first nine months of the current year, also announced last year that it was investing an additional 50 million euros for sterile API production at Palafolls, Spain. Combined with Austrian federal government plans to contribute or coordinate public funding of about 50 million euros, the total amount now being invested in the Sandoz antibiotics network across Europe is over 250 million euros.