After completing a review of its drug portfolio, Swiss drug giant Novartis AG is dropping about 20 percent of its drug-research projects, according to Bloomberg.
The pharma company downsized its program from 430 projects to 340 projects. Among the projects dropped were medications for infectious diseases.
"The sadness about these 90 projects is there's some great science there," Jay Bradner, MD, president of the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, told O "These are not bad ideas. Many of them have momentum, but they either are not likely to be transformative for patients, or are ill-suited to the focused business ambitions of Novartis."
Novartis' decision to shed the projects is another move by CEO Vas Narasimhan to refocus the drugmaker on the most cutting-edge medicines, such as cancer immunotherapies and gene therapies.
Some of the research projects Novartis will get rid of will be sold to and developed by other companies, while others will be halted or shelved, Dr. Brander said. Novartis had already announced its decision to shut down its antibiotics research unit earlier this year.
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