Chiron Corporation was an American
multinational biotechnology firm based in
Emeryville, California that was acquired by
Novartis International AG on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. Chiron's business and research was in three main areas:
biopharmaceuticals,
vaccines and
blood testing. Chiron's vaccines and blood testing units were combined to form Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, while Chiron BioPharmaceuticals was integrated into
Novartis Pharmaceuticals. In 2014, Novartis completed the sale of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit ("Novartis Diagnostics") to
Grifols, S.A. (Barcelona, Spain) and announced agreements for the sale of its vaccines unit ("Novartis Vaccines").