The shareholders of the pharmaceutical company Novartis approved the spin-off of Sandoz in an extraordinary meeting held this Friday. The generics and biosimilars division of the Swiss company will operate independently and will be listed on the Zurich Stock Exchange starting October 4.
Novartis already began the separation by signing it a year ago, and the vote in the assembly has been a formality to finalize the process. The company has indicated that they consider that the creation of its own entity for the generic and biosimilar markets is “in the best interests of shareholders.”
The company has explained that Novartis shareholders will receive one participation in Sandoz for every five shares they currently have in the pharmaceutical company, whether on the Zurich Stock Exchange or company certificates in the American market.
Novartis will focus on next-generation medicines
“With these steps, both Sandoz and Novartis will be able to optimize their management, allocating their capital to priority businesses, and will be in a better position to create sustainable value for shareholders,” the chairman of Novart’s board of directors also analyzed in the statement. Jörg Reinhardt.
From its headquarters in Basel, Novartis will now focus its activity on next-generation patented medicines, more profitable than generics. Sandoz, the world’s third largest manufacturer of these generic drugs, achieved net profits of $4.8 billion in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 5%.
The firm will not be for now in the main reference index of the Zurich Stock Exchange, the SMI (where Novartis does appear and which groups the 20 firms with the highest value on the stock market), but it is included in the SLI, which groups the 30 oldest.
