Novartis invests $1 billion to build R&D institute in China

Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis has announced a $1 billion investment over the next five years, increasing R&D activities in China and confirming the company's long term commitment to China's further economic development, health reform and improving the healthcare of the Chinese people.

The Novartis investment will include a significant expansion of The Novartis Institute of BioMedical Research (CNIBR) in Shanghai. Novartis investments will expand CNIBR which is currently located in Zhangjiang High-tech Park. The institute specializes in basic R&D of new drugs including small molecule and biological medicines to treat diseases that are highly prevalent in China.

To allow for this large expansion, the BioMedical Research Institute will relocate to a new campus in Shanghai. Its activities are expected to span work in analytics and biomarkers, in vivo pharmacology, protein production, characterization and scale-up screening and chemistry and proteomics, genomics and imaging.

CNIBR is expected to extend and increase its collaborations with institutions in China and is committed to cultivating local R&D talent, sharing the development technology platform of Novartis and years of drug development experience.

CNIBR is expected to be the third largest R&D center for Novartis, after the R&D center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US and the facility at the Novartis headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and to become the largest comprehensive R&D center in China. Estimates are that the number of R&D associate positions will increase from 160 to about 1,000.

Novartis has also invested $250 million in a new global technical center which is opening in Changshu, focused on technical research, development and manufacturing activities of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

According to Novartis, the synergies gained from the co-location of both technical R&D and manufacturing enable significant pharmaceutical process improvements and operational efficiencies. The number of high quality jobs at the new center is projected to nearly double, and the facility is expected to be a critical part of the global production and supply chain network.

Daniel Vasella, chairman and CEO of Novartis, said: "We are confident that our expanded investment in R&D will result in innovative therapies for patients in China and other countries nurtured by the growing scientific excellence in China."

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