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(Adds background, comment from Sandoz CEO)
ZURICH, May 18 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis's
Sandoz generics unit will close one Spanish site,
expand another and proceed with a new Austrian facility, it said
on Tuesday, as it revamps its European antibiotics production to
better compete with rivals including from China.
Sandoz will by 2024 close its Les Franqueses site in Spain,
with 170 workers, where it makes oral active pharmaceutical
ingredients for antibiotics, it said.
Simultaneously, it is shifting injectible penicillin
production from Kundl, Austria, to another Spanish site in
Palafolls, part of a 50 million euros ($61.1 million) investment
in production due to start in 2025 and where some Les Franqueses
workers will be moved.
Sandoz is also moving ahead with plans to build
manufacturing facilities in Kundl for oral amoxicillin, with an
initial investment of more than 100 million euros.
The project is part of a five-year phased investment,
including 50 million euros from Austria's government, announced
last July that is slated for the site near Innsbruck.
Novartis's reorganization of its European generic
antibiotics production comes as its Sandoz business has suffered
from fierce price pressure as well a pandemic-related hit to
sales of not only cold and flu medicines, but also antibiotics.
"Despite a temporary drop in demand due to the pandemic, we
remain as confident as ever in the mid- to long-term prospects
for this segment, which meets a significant quantity of the
global disease burden," Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor said in a
statement.
Sandoz, which recently bought a GlaxoSmithKline
antibiotics business, did not say how many workers currently at
Les Franqueses will move to Palafolls, though there will likely
be some job reductions.
($1 = 0.8187 euros)
(Reporting by John Miller, editing by Silke Koltrowitz)
