Novartis forms US partnership

Novartis AG, considering an offer for Aventis SA, has formed a US partnership to make a cheap version of the French company’s anti-clot treatment Lovenox.

The accord may give Switzerland’s biggest drugmaker a piece of Aventis’s market regardless of whether a takeover goes ahead.

Momenta Pharmaceuticals the partner of Basel-based Novartis, will seek US approval within 12 months for its version of Lovenox, Momenta said in a filing last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lovenox, with sales of $2 billion last year, is Aventis’s number two product.