Novartis International AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.I n March 1996, the companies Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz merged to form Novartis; the pharmaceutical and agrochemical divisions of both companies formed Novartis as an independent entity. Novartis divested its agrochemical and genetically modified crops business in 2000 with the spinout of Syngenta in partnership with AstraZeneca, which also divested its agrochemical business.