From a Basel trading house to a global research network

When Johann Rudolf Geigy opened a drug and general merchandise store at Freie Strasse 42 in Basel in 1758, he could hardly have imagined that he was laying the foundation for a global corporation that, more than 250 years later, would rank among the world’s largest and most innovative pharmaceutical companies. It probably never occurred to him to think on such a scale. The world in which he sought to make a name for himself as a merchant in Basel bears no resemblance – neither from a social, political, or technological point of view – to today’s “global village.” There were neither railroads nor telegraphs, and the few, barely efficient steam engines could not replace horses, water mills, or human muscle power, the forces that kept the economy running. Moreover, strict guild laws governed economic life at the time. There was no trace of a liberal order. In Europe, wars were a part of everyday life. Louis XV reigned in France, and Frederick the Great ruled Prussia. Switzerland was still a loose confederation of cantons. And it would be nearly 20 years before the United States of America was founded. The 18th century, however, was also the Age of Enlightenment and the era of the great philosophers. Immanuel Kant, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, David Hume, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau published their works and, through their writings, laid the foundation for new social developments. Yet it would take nearly a century before the company founded by Johann Rudolf Geigy, spurred on by increasing industrialization, really gained momentum. The first factory production in Basel did not begin until the second half of the 19th century, following the discovery of synthetic dye production. After that, things moved quickly. As early as 1881, the first factories were established in neighboring France. The predecessor company, Durand & Huguenin, which was acquired by Ciba in 1900, built a plant in Saint-Fons near Lyon and drove its expansion into Germany. In 1891, Geigy built a plant in Maromme near Rouen. Less than a decade later, the first production plant was established in Russia. In Karawajewka near Moscow, Geigy produced dyewood extracts and set up a sales organization. Ciba also established a production facility in what is now Poland.

The first American subsidiary, the Geigy Aniline & Extract Company, was founded in 1903. A year later, the first blending and production facility was established in New Jersey. Shortly thereafter, the company set foot in England, the birthplace of dye production and the driving force behind global industrialization. While production abroad was expanding, the predecessor companies were also very active in expanding their trade and distribution networks. By the 1870s, they were already operating in India, China, and Japan, opening branches in Bombay, Calcutta, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Kobe, and Osaka. Although this first phase of globalization came to an end with World War I, the internationalization of the business regained momentum during the interwar period with massive investments in Brussels, Hong Kong, the United States, and Canada. And even though World War II brought internationalization to a standstill, a second major expansion phase began during this period. Novartis’ predecessor companies were active on every continent and systematically broadened their network. While Ciba, Geigy and Sandoz had previously exported their products primarily from Basel and established individual production facilities abroad, a dense global network of research, production, and sales began to develop in the 1950s. New plants were established in Europe, North and South America, and Asia, including in England, Germany, Austria, Portugal, the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, India, and Japan. At the same time, research began to shift abroad for the first time: modern research centers in New Jersey, New York, Vienna, and Mumbai complemented the Basel laboratories and made innovation a shared international endeavor. Then the first big bang happened: The 1970 merger of Ciba and Geigy created one of the world’s leading chemical and pharmaceutical groups, whose locations no longer operated as independent subsidiaries but as an integrated global network with an international division of labor. By the time Novartis was founded in 1996, the former Basel dye production company had evolved into a global research and healthcare conglomerate whose activities spanned all major economic regions of the world.

Origgio, Italy: CIBA Office Building in 1964.

From the start, Novartis focused primarily on pharmaceuticals and life sciences. Initially, facilities for small-molecule drugs still accounted for the bulk of production, but the first biotech sites were already being added, including one in Huningue. Research took on an increasingly central role. While the predecessor companies had expanded their global presence primarily by establishing production facilities and sales organizations, Novartis evolved into a globally integrated research and healthcare company. Research, development, production, and marketing were steadily organized around international centers of excellence that collaborated closely across continents. A decisive milestone in the early 2000s was the establishment of the research site in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By deliberately establishing one of the world’s largest biomedical research centers in the heart of the Boston innovation cluster, Novartis shifted a significant portion of its cutting-edge research to the world’s leading innovation ecosystem, where top universities, hospitals, biotechnology companies, and scientific talent converge in a unique way. Cambridge thus became the company’s second global research center alongside Basel and symbolizes the transformation from a multinational corporation with international subsidiaries to a globally networked innovation company.

At the same time, Novartis consistently focused on the healthcare sector and gradually divested itself of businesses outside the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. Starting in the mid-2010s, the company increasingly focused on the development of highly innovative therapies. By expanding its research and production of gene and cell therapies, and by venturing into the fields of RNA therapies and nuclear medicine, Novartis broke new ground starting in 2015 to treat diseases that had been virtually undruggable until then. Today, Novartis combines its Basel roots with a global network of research centers, manufacturing sites, and partnerships in over a hundred countries. What began as a small trading firm on Freie Strasse has evolved into a globally connected innovation company that works alongside scientists, hospitals, and biotechnology companies around the world to bring medical breakthroughs to patients more quickly.