Dive Brief:
- Novartis has sold its flu vaccines business to CSL for $275 million. These were the last set of vaccines that Novartis had been keeping in its portfolio.
- In April, Novartis sold the vast majority of its vaccine business to GSK for $7.1 billion.
- Although the latest sell-off will result in a $1.1 billion impairment, it will be offset by the income gain from the GSK deal.
Dive Insight:
Novartis has entirely sold off its vaccine franchise in order to focus on its core businesses—pharmaceuticals, generics (Sandoz), and opthalmology (Alcon).
Although Novartis did not fare well in the vaccines business, CSL is hoping to improve on the pharma giant's performance in this $4 billion industry, since it is now the the de facto number two player in the space and will be forced to compete with other large vaccine makers such as Sanofi, AstraZeneca, and GSK.
Novartis reported strong Q3 earnings on Tuesday morning.