Discover the Novartis Malaria Initiative’s treatment journey, told in video

A complex production process

A state-of-the-art production process has transformed an herbal remedy used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine into a modern medicine used by millions of patients in malaria-endemic countries.

Spanning four continents, the supply and manufacturing process of our antimalarial treatment is longer and more complex than most drugs, requiring a 14 month-production cycle:

During the first seven months, the sweet wormwood plant Artemisia annua is sown and harvested in China and Africa.
During the next three months, artemisinin is extracted from the plant and chemically modified into artemether in China. Lumefantrine is also produced in China.
The two active ingredients, artemether and lumefantrine, are then shipped to our site in Suffern, United States, where the tablets are manufactured and packaged. This third phase may last up to four months.
Finished packs are shipped to Switzerland and from there to more than 60 malaria-endemic countries.

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