Latest news with #Sandoz
NDTV
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Eurovision 2025: Why Host City Basel, Switzerland Is The Heart Of European Culture
Basel was in the international spotlight for a week of festivities surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest but the Swiss city has been at the heart of European culture for centuries. With a population of 180,000, Switzerland's third-biggest city after Zurich and Geneva straddles the River Rhine and sits right on the northern border with both France and Germany. Basel's location played a major role in its growth and continental importance through the ages. From May 11 to 17, it was centre-stage in Europe again for hosting Eurovision 2025, the pop music extravaganza that has become one of the world's biggest annual live television events and a giant international party. The influence of the Rhine can be felt in Basel's historic centre, dominated by the twin towers of Basel Minster, where the Dutch thinker Erasmus is buried. But Basel's modern emblems are the two Roche Towers, Switzerland's tallest buildings. Completed in the last decade, standing 205 metres and 178 metres (673 and 584 feet) high, they are the headquarters of the eponymous giant pharmaceutical firm. The chemical and pharmaceutical industries now drive the city's economy. Basel is one of Europe's great centres of culture. The first edition of Sebastian Brant's "Ship of Fools", one of the bestsellers of the European Renaissance, was printed in the city. The Rhine spirit is vividly expressed every spring at the three-day Basel Carnival, which transforms the city streets into a river of painted lanterns, colourful masks and creative costumes, flowing to the sound of pipes and drums. The world's biggest Protestant carnival features on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list and attracts thousands of tourists. The city has world-renowned museums -- none more so than the Kunstmuseum, the oldest public art collection in the world dating back to 1661. In a referendum in 1967, citizens decided to buy two paintings by Pablo Picasso, who, moved by the vote, would later donate several more works to the city. Across the Rhine, the Museum Tinguely draws in thousands of visitors with its kinetic art sculptures, while just outside the city, the Beyeler Foundation hosts an outstanding collection of modern and contemporary artworks. And every year, art lovers and gallery owners from around the world flock to Art Basel, one of the world's top contemporary art fairs. In sports, Basel is home to tennis all-time great Roger Federer, while FC Basel are on the verge of winning their 21st Swiss football championship. Besides its culture, Basel is now synonymous with the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, home to globally important groups such as Roche, Novartis, Sandoz and Syngenta. The psychedelic drug LSD was created at the Sandoz laboratories there in 1938. Pharma and chemicals make Basel a major player in the Swiss economy, attracting researchers and students as well as cross-border workers. Around 35,000 people cross over from France and Germany, attracted by higher Swiss wages. Basel is the home of the Bank for International Settlements, considered the central bank of central banks. The city is left-leaning, perhaps due to the influence of its university, the oldest in Switzerland, founded in 1460. It has approximately 13,000 students from 100 countries, around a quarter of whom are studying for their doctorates. The city has also lived through major disasters: the great earthquake of 1356 and the Sandoz chemical spill 630 years later. The biggest quake in central Europe in recorded history, and the fires it caused, destroyed a city already ravaged by the Black Death. The 1986 fire at the Sandoz chemical plant on the outskirts of Basel also left its mark due to the ecological disaster caused by toxic chemicals leaking into the Rhine, killing wildlife as far downstream as the Netherlands.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What Makes Novartis AG (NVS) a Differentiated Business?
Loomis Sayles, an investment management company, released its 'Global Growth Fund' first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the fund returned -3.35% compared to -1.32% for the MSCI ACWI Net Index. Stock selection in consumer staples, communication services, and healthcare sectors, and allocations to the information technology and healthcare sectors positively impacted the fund's relative performance. In addition, please check the fund's top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025. In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Loomis Sayles Global Growth Fund highlighted stocks such as Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS). Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is a pharmaceutical company that engages in the research, development, and distribution of pharmaceutical medicines. The one-month return of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) was 0.11%, and its shares gained 12.16% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 23, 2025, Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) stock closed at $112.75 per share with a market capitalization of $227.204 billion. Loomis Sayles Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: "Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is a diversified global healthcare company with market leadership in branded pharmaceuticals across a broad range of treatment areas, including oncology (30% of revenues), immunology (almost 20% of revenues), cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic (almost 20%), and neurology (10%). The company also derives over 20% of revenues from mature branded products in non-core therapy areas. With the October 2023 spinoff of the company's Sandoz generics and biosimilars division, which followed the 2019 spinoff of ophthalmologic equipment maker Alcon and 2018 divestiture of a consumer health joint venture, the company is now purely focused on innovative medicines, which accounted for about 80% of revenue and 85% of core operating income prior to the Sandoz spinoff. The company generates over 50% of revenue from the Americas, approximately 30% from Europe, and almost 20% from the rest of the world. A doctor holding a microscope in front of a laboratory sample of healthcare products. Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 33 hedge fund portfolios held Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) at the end of the first quarter, which was 33 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the undervalued AI stock set for massive gains. In another article, we covered Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) and shared the list of best undervalued stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors. READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Americans would suffer most if Trump imposes pharma tariffs, sector warns
Americans would suffer most if Donald Trump imposed tariffs on imports of pharmaceuticals, as medications would become more expensive and potentially unaffordable for some people, drugmakers have warned. Drugmakers have been braced for targeted border taxes – similar to the 25% levies on steel, aluminium and car imports – after the US president threatened to hit the sector and announced an investigation last month. Last week, Trump hinted at a possible reprieve for companies, saying they would be given time to move their operations to the US, But 'after that it's going to be a tariff wall put up, and they won't be happy about it,' he added. Giovanni Barbella, the global head of strategy and supply chain at the Swiss multinational Sandoz, said tariffs would lead to supply disruptions and in the medium term price increases, hitting US patients hardest. Sandoz is one of the world's biggest makers of generic drugs – cheaper versions of branded medicines whose patents have expired. The majority of prescription drugs sold around the world are generic. 'We are producing products on a very tight margin,' Barbella said. 'That's the nature of our industry. So ultimately, higher production cost, including the cost of tariffs, will lead to higher prices.' He added: 'There can be even more supply disruption, because some players can leave the [US] market and focus on markets where they can make more business. So ultimately, the risk is that the US patient will suffer the most.' There are already persistent drug shortages in the US, the UK and other countries, and tariffs would potentially exacerbate that by disrupting the long and complex global supply chains. Mark Samuels, the chief executive of Medicines UK, which represents Britain-based generic drugmakers, said: 'In an insurance-based system, as the US has, if medicine costs increase and insurance runs out, then that does increase the risk that people either can't afford to complete their cancer treatments or pay for it altogether.' A 25% US tariff on pharmaceutical imports would increase drug costs in the country by almost $51bn (£38bn) a year, raising prices by up to 12.9% if passed on, according to an analysis by the accountancy firm EY that was commissioned by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the main US industry group. In an attempt to head off looming tariffs, the Swiss drugmakers Roche and Novartis are investing $50bn and $23bn respectively in the US in coming years. Britain's AstraZeneca announced a $3.5bn investment in November and said last week it was shifting the production of some medicines sold in the US from Europe to the States. The US firm Eli Lilly, the maker of diabetes and obesity drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, is spending at least $27bn to build four new manufacturing sites in the US. Johnson & Johnson is putting $55bn into US manufacturing and research over the next four years. The New Jersey-based company is more vulnerable to any US tariffs because of its significant manufacturing across Europe including the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium. Sandoz said that while pharmaceutical companies – which command higher prices for their products – could shift production to the US, it was much harder for generic drugmakers to do so. The drugs they make are cheap – a small pack of paracetemol costs from 37p at UK supermarkets – and the companies operate on tighter profit margins. About a quarter of generic medicines prescribed by the NHS are made in the UK, a third come from India and the rest from the EU, according to Medicines UK while China and India are the two main sources of medicine ingredients. Sandoz produces the main substance for antibiotics such as amoxicillin at its own sites in Austria, Spain and Slovenia, and the finished product in Austria. For other medicines, it sources the active ingredient from suppliers in India or China, and makes the finished product in Poland, Germany and Turkey. Packaging is manufactured in Poland and Slovenia. The company also has a US-approved site in India that makes finished product and packaging, and a site in Brazil that produces for the local market. For biological drugs, which are derived from living organisms, Sandoz sources the main substance from its former parent company Novartis in Europe, but is building its own manufacturing site in Slovenia. Gareth Sheridan, the chief executive of the Irish-founded, Nasdaq-listed pharma company Nutriband, has warned that lives could be lost if tariffs are imposed on medicines. 'These types of treatments can't afford a disruption in the global supply chain,' he told the BBC recently. 'As a comparable situation, tariffs on automobiles. You can't afford a BMW? Buy a Ford and you can still get to work. If you have a 25% hike on chemotherapy and you can't afford your treatment any more, what's the alternative? I mean, ultimately, people are going to die.'
Zawya
12-05-2025
- Health
- Zawya
Sandoz launches new OMNITROPE growth hormone concentration in Egypt
Egypt - Sandoz, a global leader in generic and biosimilar medicines, announced on Sunday the introduction of its 15mg/1.5ml concentration of the OMNITROPE biosimilar growth hormone to the Egyptian market for the treatment of short stature. This initiative aligns with Sandoz's ongoing efforts to support Egypt's Vision 2030 and local healthcare authorities' commitment to enhancing public health. The company stated that the newly available concentration aims to help expand access to growth hormone, noting that an estimated 17% of Egyptian children suffer from short stature. Research conducted at Suez Canal University's endocrinology outpatient clinic, released in 2024, indicated that growth hormone treatment significantly improves physical, social, psychological, and environmental quality of life. Dr. Mona Salem, Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology at Ain Shams University and President of the Egyptian Society of Paediatric Endocrinology & Diabetes, said: 'In children and adolescents, growth hormone is used to treat growth disturbance due to insufficient secretion of growth hormone, associated with Turner syndrome, with chronic renal insufficiency, in short children/adolescents born small for gestational age, or associated with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). The biosynthetic/synthetic hormone is indicated for the treatment of children with growth failure due to inadequate secretion of endogenous growth hormone (GH).' Dr. Salem added, 'Short stature is diagnosed in children or adolescents who are well below the average height for their age and gender, which may be due to genetic factors or underlying health conditions. Studies show that short stature prevalence varies geographically, with a genetic predisposition, as well as nutritional and environmental factors, playing an important role.' A cross-sectional study conducted between January 2018 and January 2020 involving 33,150 Egyptian children aged 6 to 11 showed that 17% of the sample had short stature, with 40.8% attributed to familial factors and 24.2% to constitutional causes. Dr. Rasha Tarif, Head of the Paediatric Endocrinology Unit at Ain Shams University and Chair of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) Education and Training Committee, stated: 'As noted, short stature affects children and adolescents, not only physically but also psychologically. Growth hormone is one of the most effective treatments for the aforementioned growth disturbances. The dosage is carefully calculated based on weight, underlying cause, puberty stage, as well as stimulated growth hormone test results, to achieve the best possible final height outcomes.' Dr. Tarif emphasised that young patients require therapeutic intervention before growth plates fuse, after which height cannot be gained. She added, 'Growth hormone plays a critical role in effective treatment plans, but ensuring its availability has been a challenge in recent years. This challenge is being addressed through ongoing efforts to secure sufficient quantities to ensure uninterrupted treatment until puberty is complete, and in some cases, for life. Treatment continuity, along with proper follow-up with a specialized physician, is essential for achieving optimal results.' Sandoz said the new concentration is being made available at an affordable cost, expanding treatment options and aiming for better patient response and an effective, safe treatment journey by minimising interruptions. The company stated that securing the reliable availability of this human growth hormone reinforces medical efforts to provide comprehensive care. Sameh Elbagoury, Sandoz Egypt Country Head, said: 'The Egyptian government, within the context of the Egypt Vision 2030, has shown strong commitment to reducing the prevalence of short stature among children, aiming to improve public health for current and future generations, and help build a healthier, more productive workforce, in line with the national vision for sustainable development.' Elbagoury added: 'Our top priority at Sandoz is to develop affordable biosimilars for high-quality biologics and ensure that as many patients as possible have access to them. Introducing the 15mg concentration of our well-established Omnitrope growth hormone allows us to help local authorities meet the increase in demand for growth hormones, reflecting the positive impact and notable success achieved by the Presidential Initiative for the Early Detection of Anaemia, Obesity and Short Stature.' Sandoz Omnitrope received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency in 2006, with subsequent approvals in other countries. Sandoz has also established a long-term, post-marketing surveillance programme for the product.
Daily News Egypt
11-05-2025
- Health
- Daily News Egypt
Sandoz launches new OMNITROPE growth hormone concentration in Egypt
Sandoz, a global leader in generic and biosimilar medicines, announced on Sunday the introduction of its 15mg/1.5ml concentration of the OMNITROPE biosimilar growth hormone to the Egyptian market for the treatment of short stature. This initiative aligns with Sandoz's ongoing efforts to support Egypt's Vision 2030 and local healthcare authorities' commitment to enhancing public health. The company stated that the newly available concentration aims to help expand access to growth hormone, noting that an estimated 17% of Egyptian children suffer from short stature. Research conducted at Suez Canal University's endocrinology outpatient clinic, released in 2024, indicated that growth hormone treatment significantly improves physical, social, psychological, and environmental quality of life. Dr. Mona Salem, Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology at Ain Shams University and President of the Egyptian Society of Paediatric Endocrinology & Diabetes, said: 'In children and adolescents, growth hormone is used to treat growth disturbance due to insufficient secretion of growth hormone, associated with Turner syndrome, with chronic renal insufficiency, in short children/adolescents born small for gestational age, or associated with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). The biosynthetic/synthetic hormone is indicated for the treatment of children with growth failure due to inadequate secretion of endogenous growth hormone (GH).' Dr. Salem added, 'Short stature is diagnosed in children or adolescents who are well below the average height for their age and gender, which may be due to genetic factors or underlying health conditions. Studies show that short stature prevalence varies geographically, with a genetic predisposition, as well as nutritional and environmental factors, playing an important role.' A cross-sectional study conducted between January 2018 and January 2020 involving 33,150 Egyptian children aged 6 to 11 showed that 17% of the sample had short stature, with 40.8% attributed to familial factors and 24.2% to constitutional causes. Dr. Rasha Tarif, Head of the Paediatric Endocrinology Unit at Ain Shams University and Chair of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) Education and Training Committee, stated: 'As noted, short stature affects children and adolescents, not only physically but also psychologically. Growth hormone is one of the most effective treatments for the aforementioned growth disturbances. The dosage is carefully calculated based on weight, underlying cause, puberty stage, as well as stimulated growth hormone test results, to achieve the best possible final height outcomes.' Dr. Tarif emphasised that young patients require therapeutic intervention before growth plates fuse, after which height cannot be gained. She added, 'Growth hormone plays a critical role in effective treatment plans, but ensuring its availability has been a challenge in recent years. This challenge is being addressed through ongoing efforts to secure sufficient quantities to ensure uninterrupted treatment until puberty is complete, and in some cases, for life. Treatment continuity, along with proper follow-up with a specialized physician, is essential for achieving optimal results.' Sandoz said the new concentration is being made available at an affordable cost, expanding treatment options and aiming for better patient response and an effective, safe treatment journey by minimising interruptions. The company stated that securing the reliable availability of this human growth hormone reinforces medical efforts to provide comprehensive care. Sameh Elbagoury, Sandoz Egypt Country Head, said: 'The Egyptian government, within the context of the Egypt Vision 2030, has shown strong commitment to reducing the prevalence of short stature among children, aiming to improve public health for current and future generations, and help build a healthier, more productive workforce, in line with the national vision for sustainable development.' Elbagoury added: 'Our top priority at Sandoz is to develop affordable biosimilars for high-quality biologics and ensure that as many patients as possible have access to them. Introducing the 15mg concentration of our well-established Omnitrope growth hormone allows us to help local authorities meet the increase in demand for growth hormones, reflecting the positive impact and notable success achieved by the Presidential Initiative for the Early Detection of Anaemia, Obesity and Short Stature.' Sandoz Omnitrope received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency in 2006, with subsequent approvals in other countries. Sandoz has also established a long-term, post-marketing surveillance programme for the product.
