Novartis Trims Its Sails, Divests Blood-Testing Unit To Spain’s Grifols

11 Nov 2013

• By John Davis

CEO Joe Jimenez delivers on his strategy to free up resources at Novartis by divesting its non-core blood transfusion diagnostics business for $1.7 billion.

Novartis AG’s sale of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit to Grifols SA, the Barcelona-based multinational supplier of blood-derived plasma proteins for a hefty $1.675 billion, may have begun the long-anticipated divesting of business units deemed to be non-core by the Swiss-based big pharma.

The sale of non-core businesses has been a topic of analysts’ speculation since Joerg Reinhardt started work as Novartis’ new...