Jiuzhou Pharmaceutical, a contract development and manufacturing company, agreed to acquire a manufacturing plant from Novartis, a global healthcare company-backed Sandoz China, a pharmaceuticals and biosimilars company, for $15m. "Before striking the Sandoz deal, Jiuzhou had intended to build its own factory to produce finished oral solids, with the goal to reach an annual capacity of 450m tablets. That plan would have taken too long to materialize. Instead, it’s using the same capital to purchase an existing enterprise to realize its ambition faster and save money," Sandoz.