Novartis life sciences

Karen Bradley (Novartis Foundation Bursar) Division of Neuroscience and Biomedical Systems, Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences, West Medical Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK... 

Placing all life science activities under one roof appeared to be a logical decision, and it at first had the blessings of financial analysts. However, it proved unwise. Indeed, no sooner had Novartis, AstraZeneca, Pharmacia-Upjohn-Monsanto, and Aventis been created than their managements were made aware of some important facts ... 

Cell division began in the Swiss based chemical industry in 1995 with Sandoz. It spun off its specialty chemicals business under the name of Clariant, which later merged with Hoechst s specialty chemicals activities. In 1996 we saw the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz to form Novartis, which focused exclusively on pharmaceuticals and crop protection agents. This was followed by the spin-off of Ciba specialty chemicals, as it no longer fitted in with the life sciences concept. 

But there is no end in sight to these developments, some of which are illustrated in Fig. 1. For instance, companies involved in life sciences have started to divest themselves of their agricultural chemicals business in order to concentrate on pharmaceuticals. Astra Zeneca and Novartis spun off their agricultural business in 2000, merging them into Syngenta. 

Life Sciences. The life sciences concept in the mid-1990s that created Novartis and Sanofi tried to capture synergies among pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and... 

---