Novartis is paying $1.1 billion upfront, and up to $1.5 billion including milestones, to buy Myricx Bio, a London biotech with no approved products and a payload technology that’s never been tested in a human being.
That’s a rich price for preclinical assets. Compare it to Pfizer’s $43 billion buyout of Seagen, which closed in 2023 with four approved ADCs already generating revenue. Myricx brings no such cushion, just a bet: N-myristoyltransferase inhibitor payloads, a chemistry class no one has taken past mouse models.
What Novartis actually gets is two lead candidates aimed at HER2 and B7-H3, the same targets already validated by AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu and by Daiichi and Merck’s ifinatamab deruxtecan, which just picked up FDA priority review for small-cell lung cancer, with an October 10, 2026 decision date. Both targets are crowded already. Novartis is betting its NMTi payload beats topoisomerase inhibitors head-to-head, including in patients who’ve already progressed on them.
Novartis built its oncology franchise on radioligand therapies, not ADCs, while AstraZeneca, Daiichi, Pfizer and AbbVie carved up the payload landscape over the past five years. Paying $1.1 billion for a preclinical-stage platform is Novartis buying its way into a conversation it sat out.
Up to $400 million in milestones ride on clinical benchmarks Novartis hasn’t disclosed. The deal closes in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approvals.
— Diana Kowalski