SANDOZ: Sandoz to Embrace ‘Golden Decade’ of Opportunity

For more than 50 years, Sandoz South Africa has occupied an important place in the country’s healthcare economy, but for Country Head Paolo Agbotounou, 2026 feels like a defining moment.

As the company builds on its strong local legacy, it is entering a new phase where long-standing presence meets accelerated global momentum. Across the wider group, Sandoz is marking a set of triple milestone achievements, 20 years of biosimilars, 80 years of antibiotics expertise underpinned by its world-class, fully integrated Kundl site in Austria, and 140 years of heritage. These anniversaries are markers of consistency, industrial discipline and scientific confidence, all of which now feed directly into one of the company’s most ambitious growth phases in South Africa. They also reflect Sandoz’s long-standing commitment to reliability, innovation, and expanding access to medicines across global and local markets.

For a market grappling with rising chronic disease, overstretched public healthcare budgets and millions of patients paying out-of-pocket for treatment, the timing around an uptick could hardly be more significant. Sandoz enters this next chapter with the benefit of world-class European manufacturing standards behind it, but with a mission that is deeply practical on the ground: widening access.

“We operate globally as a leader in biosimilars and generics,” Agbotounou tells Enterprise Africa. “The company has three key regional groups – North America, Europe, and International. In South Africa, we are part of the International region operation. We ensure that we deliver the same level of service and products that is offered to other regions of the world, and that is part of our strategy as an international operation. We bring and sustainably create access for affordable, quality biosimilar and generic medicines for patients in South Africa.”

Since separating from Novartis in 2023, Sandoz has moved with sharper purpose as a standalone global leader in biosimilars and generics, while continuing to invest heavily in European manufacturing resilience and broader medicine access programmes in growth markets. Its recent partnership with Samsung Bioepis on up to five biosimilars, and the acquisition of a biosimilar manufacturing site in France as well as landmark agreements to stabilise medicine supply such as the memorandum of understanding signed in Rwanda, signal a business not retreating to mature markets, but leaning further into access-led expansion.

South Africa sits within that agenda, a market with all of the highlights Sandoz seeks. “Here, we employ more than 100 people and we have a long history. We have been among the top five pharma organisations in the country, ensuring that we make our products available wherever they are needed,” Agbotounou explains.

A CENTURY BUILT

What has always separated Sandoz from many companies in the pharmaceutical sector in Africa is that this is not a business built on opportunistic imports or fragmented sourcing.  Medicines move from tightly controlled European facilities into local channels through a supply philosophy designed around continuity as the purpose remains to pioneer access for patients in the world.

The company’s Kundl plant in Austria remains the last major producer of penicillins in Europe, the leading category of antibiotics worldwide (fully end-to-end). The Kundl plant is also the last major fully vertically integrated producer based in Europe handling active ingredient production, manufacturing and dispatch from a single location, preserving both quality oversight and supply confidence as global medicine shortages continue to affect healthcare systems. This vertically integrated manufacturing capability is a key differentiator for Sandoz globally, supporting consistent supply, high quality standards, and long-term reliability for healthcare systems. That foundation matters enormously in South Africa, where stock inconsistency can quickly become a patient access crisis.

“Sandoz’s supply chain management is built on global excellence and operational discipline,” says Agbotounou. “We have global manufacturing and supply capabilities to ensure products are manufactured to world-class standards, warehoused to global best practice, and distributed from Europe to various markets through highly efficient and reliable channels. Locally, we work closely with distributors and wholesalers to ensure products are quickly and effectively made available to hospitals and pharmacies, and ultimately patients.”  

This approach ensures alignment between global manufacturing standards and local market needs, reinforcing both supply continuity and patient access.

The ability to combine European production rigor with local market responsiveness has helped the South African business grow sustainably rather than episodically. It also gives Sandoz something increasingly rare in healthcare: the capacity to deliver affordability while maintaining consistent quality, reliability and supply stability.

“We are growing through our purpose of making products available. Whenever our products are made available to patients, the company grows,” Agbotounou explains.

“Our strategic pillar is pan-access (broad and equitable access to medicines), and with us being in the country for a long time and with the burdens of disease getting higher, we are assisting in the health economy by supporting the need for sustainable and accessible healthcare solutions. The result is that we grow our operations, we are profitable, and we achieve sustainable growth in South Africa.” This approach reflects Sandoz’s broader global strategy of combining access-led growth with long-term sustainability and healthcare system support.

That link between access and profitability is central to the Sandoz story globally.

Growth is being built through volume, reach and relevance in categories where patients desperately need alternatives, rather than through exclusivity-driven models. This reinforces Sandoz’s position as a leader in off-patent medicines, focused on expanding access while supporting healthcare system resilience.

THE PROMISE

The coming product cycle represents the translation of global pipeline opportunities into tangible market execution, which is important with increasing focus on delivery and impact across African healthcare systems. “Investment will continue in South Africa, and we are planning to launch biosimilar products this year and across the next three years,” Agbotounou highlights. “We are planning to launch oncology products including treatments for prostate cancer, we are launching a range of prescription products that we hope will become available OTC, and we have a number of other biosimilar product launches planned over the next three years.” These launches reflect Sandoz’s commitment to expanding access to advanced therapies while strengthening its presence across both prescription and consumer health segments.

It is a forward push built on strong operational discipline and governance. Agbotounou is clear that every partner in the Sandoz ecosystem is held to the same standard as the company itself, because in a medicine access business, quality, consistency and reliability are critical.

“We have well‑defined contracts with our partners that clearly outline responsibilities. That is why our relationships tend to be long‑term and sustainable. We have a global presence, but we cannot afford disruption locally, and that is why we only invest in contracts that can demonstrate consistent quality and compliance with global standards,” he says of the local supply chain. This reinforces Sandoz’s commitment to maintaining high standards across its entire value chain, from manufacturing through to distribution.

That insistence extends beyond supply into corporate ethics and operational philosophy. “When we talk about doing things right, being ethical, and ensuring the highest quality assurance, we operate within clearly defined global standards. We cannot simply say that Sandoz is a company with a high level of quality without ensuring that these standards are consistently applied and maintained,” he adds, reflecting Sandoz’s broader commitment to ethical operations, governance, and long-term trust with healthcare partners.

That quality allows for a strong and considered confidence to run through Sandoz South Africa in 2026. Not the confidence of a business hoping the market will improve, but of one that can already see where healthcare demand is moving and has spent years preparing for it. Over a century of Swiss heritage, half a century of South African presence, a biosimilar wave gathering pace, and a continent in urgent need of affordable advanced medicine, these factors are converging to define the next phase of growth and impact, marking the beginning of what Sandoz describes as a ‘golden decade’ of opportunity.

“The mission and purpose of Sandoz have always been clear: we want to pioneer access, and we want to ensure all patients in the world can access high-quality generics and biosimilars. We want to remain the leading company in this space,” Agbotounou closes. “This is very much in line with what we are doing in South Africa. Sandoz is well positioned for the future. So many blockbuster products are losing their patents in the next decade, and that will help Sandoz to strengthen its role globally and ensure we can continue to grow, living up to our mission to pioneer access for patients.”