Novartis AG carries out research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of pharmaceuticals and generic medicines. The company operates through two divisions – Innovative Medicines and Sandoz. The Innovative Medicines division offers patent-protected medicines to patients and physicians. It researches, develops, manufactures, distributes, and sells patented pharmaceuticals and consists of two global business units – Novartis oncology and Novartis pharmaceuticals. Novartis oncology business unit carries out the commercialization of products in the areas of cancer and haematological disorders. The Novartis pharmaceuticals business unit is responsible for the commercialisation of various products in therapeutic areas such as immunology, hepatology and dermatology, neuroscience, ophthalmology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolism, respiratory and allergy, and established medicines. Its major marketed products include Tasigna (nilotinib), Promacta/Revolade (eltrombopag), Jakavi (ruxolitinib), and Gleevec/Glivec (imatinib mesylate/imatinib). The Sandoz division provides generic pharmaceuticals and biosimilars. Sandoz consists of three franchises – retail generics, anti-infectives and biopharmaceuticals. Through retail generics, Sandoz develops, manufactures, and markets active ingredients and finished dosage forms of small-molecule pharmaceuticals to third parties in a range of therapeutic areas and finished dosage form of anti-infectives sold to third parties. In anti-infectives, Sandoz manufactures and supplies active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates. Biopharmaceuticals offers biotechnology-based products including biosimilars and provides biotechnology manufacturing services to other companies.
The company’s research program is conducted by the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR). Research at the Friedrich Miescher Institute and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation focus on basic genetic and genomic research, and the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD) concentrates on discovering new medicines to treat tropical diseases such as malaria and cryptosporidiosis.