Novartis

Novartis International AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number one in sales (57.9 billion US$) among the world-wide industry in 2013. In July 2015, Novartis had a market-cap of around $280 billion making it the largest healthcare company by this metric.

Novartis manufactures such drugs as clozapine (Clozaril), diclofenac (Voltaren), carbamazepine (Tegretol), valsartan (Diovan) and imatinib mesylate (Gleevec/Glivec). Additional agents include cyclosporin (Neoral/Sandimmun), letrozole (Femara), methylphenidate (Ritalin), terbinafine (Lamisil), and others.

In 1996, Ciba-Geigy merged with Sandoz, and the pharmaceutical and agrochemical divisions of both companies formed Novartis as an independent entity. Other Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz businesses were sold, or like Ciba Specialty Chemicals, spun off as independent companies. The Sandoz brand disappeared for 3 years, but was revived in 2003 when Novartis consolidated its generic drugs businesses into a single subsidiary and named it Sandoz. Novartis divested its agrochemical and genetically modified crops business in 2000 with the spinout of Syngenta in partnership with AstraZeneca, which also divested its agrochemical business.