The Novartis Foundation has been one of the leading organizations in the private sector for international development for the last 35 years.
Today, the Novartis Foundation focuses its work on the fight against leprosy and malaria, as well as on access to healthcare projects.
The purpose of the institution was to promote collaboration in the medical sciences by the organisation of symposia which would allow experts of different fields to share ideas.
Later these discussions were written up by in-house editors and published by John Wiley & Sons, with whom the foundation had a long-standing relationship.
Novartis, though it provided financial support for the foundation, was not (in later years) represented on the board of trustees and occupied only a minority of seats on the executive council.