Sandoz has rolled out a plan to increase its biosimilars portfolio to more than 100 biosimilars, including generic GLP-1’s by 2040, increase manufacturing capacity, and more than double its net sales by 2035.

By Patricia Van Arnum, Editorial Director, DCAT, [email protected]

Biosimilars growth strategy
Sandoz, the former generics and biosimilars arm of Novartis, which was spun off as a standalone company in 2023, put forth this week (September 8, 2026) an ambitious growth plan led by its biosimilars portfolio. The plan, called Bio100, seeks to take advantage of the wave of loss of exclusivity (LoE) for innovator biologics slated for the balance of this decade and into the next decade.

“Sandoz begins its next growth phase from a position of strength, built on a strong track record and a proven global platform,” said Richard Saynor, Sandoz’s Chief Executive Officer, in a September 8, 2026, statement. “Our Bio100 ambitions are set to position biosimilars to become the majority of our sales, broadening access for patients while creating significant value for shareholders.”

Sandoz had 2025 revenues of $11.1 billion, with its biosimilars business accounting for 30% of its revenues and its generics business 70%. It currently has 13 biosimilars in its commercial portfolio, and it aims to increase that to approximately 70 by 2035 and to more than 100 by 2040.The company is predicating that growth on realizing opportunities not yet targeted by the company of more than $300 billion in originator biologics LoE sales slated to come off patent between 2026 and 2040. Sandoz says realizing those opportunities would increase its biosimilar LoE value coverage to more than 80% in 2035 and 2040, up from 50% currently. LoE value coverage is a financial metric used to measure how much of the total market revenue opening up due to expiring patents is targeted by a company’s upcoming pipeline. With that growth, Sandoz is seeking to more than double its net sales from 2025 to 2035 through Bio100 and achieve a core EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margin above 30% by 2035. The company says it expects to increase the number of biosimilars it is developing in-house from approximately two per year currently, to approximately seven per year in 2035 to up to 10 per year from 2040.

“The scale of our ambitions is matched by the strength of our plan,” said Sandoz’s Saynor, in his September 8, 2026, statement, highlighting the company’s “leading biosimilar pipeline, a scalable, flexible and cost-competitive biosimilar development, manufacturing and supply network, best-in-class commercial engines, a culture to attract and retain the best talent and disciplined focus on value creation.”

Manufacturing and supply strategy
In outlining its biosimilars growth initiative, Sandoz pointed to its more than EUR 1.0-billion ($1.12 billion) investment to create a biosimilars manufacturing hub in Europe (see Figure 1) with vertical integration across development and manufacturing (drug substance and fill–finish) at its European sites. Those investments will further position the company’s biosimilar development and supply network in-house, shifting reliance on a CDMO network currently to a future goal of having approximately 60% of its manufacturing in-house and 50–70% of development in-house.

Some key expansions in its European network to support its biosimilars portfolio include a $300-million investment to expand biologics drug-substance production for clinical and commercial supply for low-to-medium volume products at a new facility in Ljubljana, Slovenia, slated to be operational from 2029. In addition, in June (June 2026), the company opened a new $99-million biosimilar development center in Ljubljana.

Also, in Slovenia, the company is investing $440 million for a new sterile drug-product manufacturing facility in Brnik, slated to be operational in 2028. In Lendava, the company is scheduled to complete construction of new large-volume biologics drug-substance facility later in 2026, with operations slated to begin in 2027. And in late 2025, Sandoz completed its acquisition of Just-Evotec Biologics EU SAS, which included a site in Toulouse, France, to provide small-scale continuous biomanufacturing for drug substances.

Overall LoE market opportunities
In mapping out its biosimilars growth plan, Sandoz pointed to the overall market opportunities in generics and biosimilars as innovator companies face a near- and mid-term patent cliff and an escalation for off-patent opportunities.

Overall, for the industry, it estimates that LoE opportunities across biosimilars and generics of $270 billion from 2026–2030, which is evenly divided between generics and biosimilars ($130 billion each), plus an additional $10 billion for LoE for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs, the blockbuster drugs for treating Type 2 diabetes and obesity. These LoE opportunities significantly ramp up from 2030–2040 to an estimated $380 billion in 2031–2035 ($190 billion for biosimilars, $130 billion for generics, and $30 billion for GLP-1’s) to $480 billion in 2036–2040 ($220 billion for biosimilars, $150 billion for generics, and $110 billion for GLP-1’s).