Swiss drug company Novartis plans to cut 550 jobs in Switzerland by the end of 2027 as it modernises a factory to cease producing pills and capsules to focus on cell therapies.
“To maintain competitive production, we must focus on innovative production technologies and invest in a high degree of automation,” Steffen Lang, who heads Novartis’s operations, said in a press release.
The pharmaceutical giant said it will invest $26 million in its plant in Stein, near Basel, to focus on manufacturing more complex treatments.
Novartis also plans to invest $80 million in another site in Switzerland, also near Basel, to boost production of RNA treatments, innovative therapies used particularly for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases.
Some 80 jobs could be created at the plant by 2028.
Basel-based Novartis, which had revenue of $50.3 billion last year, employed 78,310 people worldwide at the end of 2024.
In Switzerland it employs about 10,000, including 5,000 in research and development.
