The sign of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis is seen on top of a building on the Novartis campus in Basel, northern Switzerland, on September 9, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | getty images
novartis The Swiss pharmaceutical giant plans to buy US-based biotech Accelergy for up to $2 billion, betting on a next-generation allergy treatment that could prove to work faster and better than anything currently on the market. Said Friday.
The acquisition will add early-stage drug XL-111 to Novartis’ existing allergy portfolio. This is the latest bolt-on deal in the company’s effort to shorten patent expiration dates.
It comes exactly one week later Novartis announced It is acquiring Synovation subsidiary Picavation Therapeutics for up to $3 billion to secure the rights to an experimental breast cancer drug.
In February, the company Completes the acquisition of Avidity Biosciencesis adding three late-stage programs to its neuromuscular pipeline, with the potential for multiple launches before 2030.
Accelergy’s lead asset is years away from coming to market. Novartis said it will pay the small biotech both upfront and significant payments, and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Novartis shares were trading sideways in morning trading in Zurich. Palo Alto-based Accelergy is privately held.
Novartis shares are up 33% in the last 12 months.
Many of the world’s best-selling drugs face loss of exclusivity in key jurisdictions, what the sector calls the “patent cliff”. By the end of the decade, companies risk losing hundreds of billions in revenue as branded drugs are exposed to generic competition.
Like the second half of 2025, early 2026 saw several M&A announcements from Big Pharma, including merck Earlier this week it announced it had reached a deal to buy Turns Pharmaceuticals for up to $6.7 billion. of britain GSK And AstraZeneca are also among the companies that have announced several deals in the past months.
Chris Sheldon, GSK’s global head of business development, told CNBC late last year that he often looks for acquisitions in the $1 billion to $2 billion range in mid-stage development, where the biology is validated biology but the outcome of the drug candidate is not yet clear. Like Novartis and AstraZeneca, GSK is looking for so-called bolt-on deals that complement its portfolio and technology.
Novartis warned earlier this year that profits would decline as early as 2026 as some of its best-selling drugs, including heart drug Entresto, face generic competition. Its second best-selling drug, Cosentyx, is expected to lose key exclusivity around 2029.
“For the first half of the year, with Entresto, Promacta and Tasigna generics entering the US market in mid-2025, we will have a tough prior year base,” then-incoming CFO Mukul Mehta said in a post-earnings call with analysts in February.
Novartis is seeing strong growth in other drugs such as cancer drug Kisqali and multiple sclerosis treatment Kesympta, but will still need to grow its pipeline to offset the decline.
CEO Vas Narasimhan has said that the company is in the midst of the largest patent expiration wave in its history.
“That’s $4 billion that we will spend for three drugs over the course of this year,” Narasimhan told CNCB in February.
