Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Consistently ranked in the global top five, Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the fourth largest by revenue in 2022.
Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of therapies for the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide. Biogen operates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
AstraZeneca plc (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas including oncology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory, and inflammation. It has been involved in developing the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Amgen Inc. is an American multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. One of the world's largest independent biotechnology companies, Amgen's Thousand Oaks staff in 2022 numbered approximately 5,000 and included hundreds of scientists, making Amgen the largest employer in Ventura County. As of 2022, Amgen has approximately 24,000 staff in total.
Clariant AG is a Swiss multinational speciality chemical company, formed in 1995 as a spin-off from Sandoz. Headquartered in Muttenz, Switzerland, the public company encompasses 74 subsidiaries in 36 countries (2022). Major manufacturing sites are located in Europe, North America, South America, China, and India. In 2022, sales from continuing operations were 5.198 billion CHF.
BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. is an American biotechnology company headquartered in San Rafael, California. It has offices and facilities in the United States, South America, Asia, and Europe. BioMarin's core business and research is in enzyme replacement therapies (ERTs). BioMarin was the first company to provide therapeutics for mucopolysaccharidosis type I, by manufacturing laronidase. BioMarin was also the first company to provide therapeutics for phenylketonuria (PKU).
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. is an Israeli multinational pharmaceutical company. Teva specializes primarily in generic drugs, but other business interests include branded-drugs, active pharmaceutical ingredients (API's) and, to a lesser extent, contract manufacturing services and an out-licensing platform.
Endo International plc is an American Irish-domiciled generics and specialty branded pharmaceutical company that generated over 93% of its 2017 sales from the U.S. healthcare system. While Endo's management, operations, and customers are almost exclusively U.S.–based, in 2013 Endo executed a corporate tax inversion to Ireland to avoid U.S. corporate taxes on their U.S. drug sales, and to avail of Ireland's corporate tax system.
Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical founded in 1987 that was based in San Diego, California. The company was engaged in the discovery, development, and commercialization of drug candidates for the treatment of diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. Amylin produced three drugs: Symlin, Byetta (exenatide) and Bydureon.
Actelion is a pharmaceuticals and biotechnology company established in December 1997, headquartered in Allschwil near Basel, Switzerland.
Cadazolid is an experimental antibiotic of the oxazolidinone class made by Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd. which is effective against Clostridium difficile, a major cause of drug resistant diarrhea in the elderly. Current drug treatments for this infection involve orally delivered antibiotics, principally fidaxomicin, metronidazole and vancomycin; the last two drugs are the principal therapeutic agents in use, but fail in approximately 20 to 45% of the cases. The drug works by inhibiting synthesis of proteins in the bacteria, thus inhibiting the production of toxins and the formation of spores. Cadazolid progressed through to Phase III clinical trials, but in its financial results for Q1 2018, Idorsia mentions that Actelion informed them that "following completion of Phase 3 data analysis of cadazolid - it has decided to discontinue the development of the compound."
Selexipag, sold under the brand name Uptravi, is a medication developed by Actelion for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Selexipag and its active metabolite, ACT-333679, are agonists of the prostacyclin receptor, which leads to vasodilation in the pulmonary circulation. It is taken by mouth or administered intravenously.
The pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland directly and indirectly employs about 135,000 people. It contributes 5.7% of the gross domestic product of Switzerland and 30% of the country's exports. In 2017 about 30% of Swiss exports were chemical products. In the same year Switzerland was the second largest exporter of packaged medicine in the world, with about 11% of the global total, worth $36.5 billion.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc is a global biopharmaceutical company with a focus on oncology and neuroscience. It was founded in 2003 in California, United States. One of the company's considerable products is the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug Xyrem, the sodium salt of the naturally occurring neurotransmitter γ-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB). In 2017, net product sales of Xyrem were $1.187 billion, which represented 74% of the company's total net product sales. In 2019, Jazz was granted FDA-approval to market Sunosi with indications for treating excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in narcolepsy as well as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). In 2022, it was announced that Axsome Therapeutics would be acquiring Sunosi from Jazz Pharmaceuticals.
Arbutus Biopharma Corporation is a publicly traded Canadian biopharmaceutical company with an expertise in liposomal drug delivery and RNA interference, and is developing drugs for hepatitis B infection.
Allergan plc is an American, Irish-domiciled pharmaceutical company that acquires, develops, manufactures and markets brand name drugs and medical devices in the areas of medical aesthetics, eye care, central nervous system, and gastroenterology. The company is the maker of Botox.
CSL Vifor is a global specialty pharmaceuticals company in the treatment areas of iron deficiency, dialysis, nephrology & rare disease. It is headquartered in Switzerland and consists of CSL Vifor, Vifor Fresenius Medical Care Renal Pharma (VFMCRP) and Sanifit Therapeutics.
Daridorexant, sold under the brand name Quviviq, is an orexin antagonist medication which is used for the treatment of insomnia. Daridorexant is taken by mouth.
Owkin is an AI biotech company that uses artificial intelligence to identify new treatments, optimize clinical trials and develop AI diagnostics. The company uses federated learning, a type of privacy preserving technology, to access multimodal patient data from academic institutions and hospitals to train its AI models for drug discovery, development, and diagnostics. Owkin has collaborated with pharmaceutical companies around the world to improve their therapeutic programs.
Martine Clozel is a scientist, entrepreneur and co-founder of Actelion and Idorsia.
