From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
Novartis International AG
is a
multinational
pharmaceutical company based
in
Basel, Switzerland.
History
Novartis was created in
1996 from the merger of
CIBA-Geigy and
Sandoz Laboratories, both
Swiss companies with long
individual histories. At the time
of the merger, it was the largest
corporate merger in history.
Taking into account the histories
of the merger partners, the
company's history stretches back
to
1758.
In
1998, the company made
headlines with its
biotechnology licensing
agreement with the
UC Berkeley Department of
Plant and
Microbial
Biology. Critics of the
agreement were concerned that the
agreement would diminish academic
objectivity or that it would lead
to the commercialization of
genetically modified plants.
The agreement expired in 2003.
There are indicia which point to
the commercialization of
genetically modified
ingredients in Novartis' products,
at least in
Spain (source:
Greenpeace
Spain).
Novartis combined its
agricultural division with
that of
AstraZeneca to create
Syngenta in November of
2000.
Sandoz is best known for
synthesizing
LSD in
1938. They later marketed it
(under the trade name Delysid)
as a
psychiatric miracle cure from
1947 through the early 1960s.
Nowadays, Sandoz is a producer of
generics.
