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Case Study

Sandoz China: Do we stay or do we go?

By Mark J. Greeven and Jim Pulcrano

12 pages

September 2025

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Reference: IMD-2680

The Sandoz leadership team faced an important decision as it broke away from Novartis and became a public company. Should Sandoz retain the global geographical coverage it had had in its many years as part of Novartis? Or should it focus on fewer geographies and a simplification of the business models it was using? Since Sandoz was in a lower margin business than an innovator pharma company like Novartis, eventually, the senior leadership team decided to exit China. There was a belief that it was going to be difficult to compete on price with local Chinese companies, and the investment required to invest in more complex generics, as well as high-margin biosimilars, was beyond the means of Sandoz as it became a publicly listed company. The case also touches on the differences of opinion in a very strong leadership team and the options that were explored, or not, as the sale of Sandoz China to Aspen Pharmacare was concluded.

Learning Objective

Understand the extreme stress of a leadership team attempting to make myriad decisions in an unfavorable market environment.
Understand that strategy means choice – a company cannot do everything it wishes.
Evaluate an exit decision versus continued investment, considering both quantitative factors (market size, growth and profitability) and qualitative factors (strategic alignment, reputation and people impact).
Develop a sense of the differing opinions and objectives of the members of the leadership team and their ability to perform a multifaceted strategic analysis under uncertainty.

Keywords

Strategy, Pharmaceuticals, Mergers and Acquisitions

Settings

World/global
Sandoz, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals
2023

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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