Novartis confirms Sandoz spinoff rumors

At long last the moment has arrived — Novartis announced its intention to separate Sandoz, its generics and biosimilars division, into a new publicly traded standalone company.

Rumors that Novartis was mulling a sale or spinoff of Sandoz have been swirling since last Oct. when the Swiss drugmaker's CEO, Vas Narasimhan, announced a strategic review of the unit to decide if it’s still a good fit with the company’s long-term growth plans. Last month, "people familiar with the matter" leaked to Bloomberg that the spinoff was the likely choice.

Now it's official. The 100% spin-off — armed with a biosimilars pipeline of 15+ molecules — will create Europe's largest generics company by sales.

The standalone Sandoz will be headquartered in Switzerland. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second half of next year.