With the writing on the wall in recent years, Novartis is moving to formally exit one of its businesses in India.
The Swiss drugmaker will transfer its 70.68% stake in Novartis India Limited—a Bombay Stock Exchange-listed company that primarily handles older and off-patent drugs in areas like immunology, neuroscience and pain—to a group of private equity firms, Novartis said in a Feb. 20 release on its India website.
The buyers include ChrysCapital Fund X, WaveRise Investments and Two Infinity Partners, Novartis India Limited said in a Thursday filing (PDF) on the BSE. All told, the deal is worth some $159 million, according to Reuters, broadly lining up with the $161 million value ascribed to the unit when Novartis announced a strategic review of the division back in February 2024.
The review came amid a refocusing on innovative drugs at the company, which notably spun off its generics and biosimilars unit Sandoz in 2023.
Apart from the nearly 71% holding conferred by the sale, the private equity purchasers have put out an offer to snap up another 26% of Novartis India shares from public shareholders, worth up to 5.52 billion Indian rupees (around $61 million) in total, a separate BSE filing from the buyers consortium shows (PDF).
While Novartis is parting ways with the India business responsible for many prescription, generic and over-the-counter medicines, it’s not exiting the country altogether.
Specifically, the company will continue to operate its subsidiary Novartis Healthcare Private Limited, which “includes the commercial arm of Novartis in India,” as well as a corporate center in the city of Hyderabad and R&D teams, according to Novartis’ release.
The sale of Novartis India Limited is expected to close in 2026’s third quarter, its parent company said. Novartis India’s share price spiked 20% on the BSE Friday.
Prior to the launch of the strategic review in 2024, Novartis India in 2022 struck a sales and distribution deal with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories in a bid to increase access to certain medicines, like pain relief drug Voveran and Methergine, which is used to treat severe bleeding from the uterus after childbirth.
While the move was designed to wed Novartis India’s manufacturing and development muscle with Dr. Reddy’s sales and distribution reach, Novartis announced some 400 layoffs in tandem with the team-up.
Novartis currently employs more than 9,000 people in the country, according to its Friday press release.
The partial retreat from its India footprint comes as Novartis has—alongside multiple other Big Pharma companies—made significant pledges to expand its operations in the U.S.
Last April, Novartis joined a suite of drugmakers making U.S. manufacturing pledges in a bid to ameliorate the Trump administration’s pharmaceutical tariff threats, committing $23 billion to build and expand 10 American facilities over a five-year span.
The company elaborated on its expansion plans early last month, laying out designs on a new, 35,000-square-foot radioligand therapy (RLT) facility slated for construction in Winter Park, Florida. Alongside two other RLT plants in New Jersey and California, the facility will chip in on domestic production of radiopharmaceutical therapies for cancer like Lutathera and Pluvicto.
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