The Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis has chosen Brazil as the location for the construction of its first vaccine factory in Latin America, with an investment value ranging from 300 to 500 million dollars, reported the financial daily Valor on Thursday.
The facility will be located in close proximity to the city of Recife in the northeast of the country and will begin producing vaccines in early 2014 for domestic and foreign markets, said Alexander Triebnigg, the group’s director for Brazil, to Valor. Construction will start this year, the newspaper announced. "The decision to invest in Brazil reflects the stability and predictable nature of the country at the political and legal level," Triebnigg stated. Strong Brazilian intellectual property protection and disease prevention policies through a good vaccination program were also attractive, he said.
The suburb of Goiana in Recife was chosen for the factory due to its access to ports and the tax incentives offered by the Brazilian federal state of Pernambuco. The company already has a factory in Sao Paulo, and another in Rio de Janeiro that synthesizes chemical raw materials for medicines. A third facility in the southern Brazilian federal state of Parana produces generic drugs under the name Sandoz. Novartis achieved annual revenues of 44.3 billion dollars last year, including one billion dollars from its Brazilian operations, Valor reports. (H)
