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NOVARTIS

Switzerland’s Novartis to inject $100 million into malaria drug research

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis on Tuesday announced $100 million of funding over the next five years for research into new treatments for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease with a devastating impact that killed 445,000 people in 2016.

Published: 17 April 2018 11:34 CEST
Switzerland's Novartis to inject $100 million into malaria drug research
A health worker and a mother try to get down the fever of a boy with malaria in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017. Photo: AFP

There were some 216 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2016, an increase of five million from the year before, according to the World Health Organization.

Around 90 percent of the 445,000 of malaria-related deaths occurred in Africa, but people in southeast Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, the western Pacific and the Americas are also considered at risk.

In a bid to redress the disproportionate burden carried by African countries, Novartis said it would establish a strategy aimed at ensuring equitable pricing.

In a statement, the company also said it would “further help expand access” to treatment for children with malaria.

Novartis's announcement came as Senegal hosted a pan-African conference this week on the fight against malaria.

Deaths from malaria dropped by over 60 percent from 2000 to 2015, but because of growing resistance to available treatments and insecticides, there is a risk that the progress made so far may be slowed.

“Resistance to treatment presents the biggest threat to the incredible progress that has been made in the fight against malaria in the past 20 years,” Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said.

“We cannot afford to wait; this is why we are committing to advance the research and development of next-generation treatments,” he added.

NOVARTIS

Switzerland’s Novartis to help make Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis said Friday it had signed an initial agreement to help produce the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19, as countries scramble to boost supplies.

Published: 29 January 2021 15:53 CET
Switzerland's Novartis to help make Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine
Novartis will help manufacture Pfizer vaccine. Photo by AFP.

The rare act of cooperation — in an industry usually marked by cut-throat competition — comes after French pharma group Sanofi announced earlier this week that it would also team up with rivals Pfizer and BioNTech to help produce 125 million doses of their jab.

The two-dose vaccine, which is based on mRNA technology, has been shown to be around 95 percent effective and has been approved for use by the World Health Organization and in some 50 countries.

But it is in limited supply as nations around the world race to immunise their populations against the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 2.2 million people in just over a year.

Novartis said in a statement that it would use its sterilised manufacturing facilities at its site in Stein, Switzerland to help produce the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs.

Under the agreement, the company said it would “take bulk mRNA active ingredient from BioNTech and fill this into vials under aseptic conditions for shipment back to BioNTech for their distribution to healthcare system customers around the world”.

Once a final agreement is reached, Novartis said it expected to begin production in the second quarter of the year, with initial shipment of finished product expected in the third quarter.

Steffen Lang, Head of Novartis Technical Operations, stressed that the company was “committed to leverage our manufacturing capabilities to help support the supply of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics around the world”.

“We expect this to be the first of a number of such agreements,” he said in the statement.

Novartis said it was already in “advanced discussions” with a number of other companies about with other production tasks, including of mRNA, therapeutic protein and raw material production for Covid vaccines and therapeutics. 

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