By Adria Calatayud
Novartis said it agreed to buy biotech company Excellergy for up to $2 billion, adding a new approach to treat allergic diseases to its immunology pipeline.
The Swiss pharmaceutical company said Friday that the deal for privately held Excellergy brings in a drug candidate in early-stage trials with potential to complement its existing allergy portfolio.
The Excellergy purchase is the latest in a series of acquisitions by Novartis in recent months, as the company turned to dealmaking to fill its drug pipeline and offset patent expirations. It follows Novartis's agreement last week to buy a breast-cancer drug candidate from Synnovation Therapeutics for up to $3 billion, and other recent deals that gave it access to experimental medicines to treat neuromuscular, cardiovascular and renal diseases.
Novartis sees in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Excellergy a good fit that builds on its long-standing presence in allergic diseases.
The company recently launched a new drug called Rhapsido for chronic spontaneous urticaria--or chronic hives with no known trigger--and is evaluating it for another form of hives, food allergy and skin condition hidradenitis suppurativa.
The lead drug in Excellergy's portfolio, Exl-111, is a so-called anti-IgE antibody and belongs to the same class of drugs as Xolair, which is jointly promoted by Novartis and Roche in the U.S. Novartis reported sales of $1.72 billion for Xolair last year, but it now faces competition from a lower-cost biosimilar product in some European countries.
Novartis said the Excellergy drug is a next-generation extension of validated approaches to target the IgE antibody, which plays a crucial role in allergic reactions. It offers a differentiated mechanism that, if confirmed clinically, could support earlier symptom relief, stronger disease control and more convenient dosing across food allergy, hives, allergic asthma and other diseases, the company said.
For Excellergy, the deal comes a month after the company presented at a scientific congress data that it said showed the potential of its drug candidate for the control of allergic diseases. The company in November said it had raised $70 million to advance its pipeline.
Excellergy's chief executive, Todd Zavodnick, said the deal with Novartis validates the potential of the company's drug mechanism and helps it develop Exl-111 and its broader pipeline.
Novartis's U.K. peer GSK earlier this year bought RAPT Therapeutics, a California-based company that developed a drug to protect against food-allergy reactions, for around $2.2 billion.
Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-27-26 0624ET
