It’s a sell­er’s world in biotech M&A, and No­var­tis CEO Vas Narasimhan has his check book out and pen ready

The Al­con spin­off is of­fi­cial­ly done to­day, de­but­ing on the Swiss ex­change with a mar­ket cap of $25 bil­lion-plus, and No­var­tis CEO Vas Narasimhan is plan­ning a long-run­ning shop­ping spree in search of im­por­tant new biotech prod­ucts. And he’s been clear­ly fo­cused on a late-stage strat­e­gy that has trig­gered a flash­ing red warn­ing light at a world of po­ten­tial ri­vals.

In sev­er­al in­ter­views, in­clud­ing this one with the Fi­nan­cial Times, the youngest CEO in No­var­tis his­to­ry is new­ly lib­er­at­ed. He has a pipeline stuffed with drugs he’s cer­tain are block­busters-to-be, with 4 late-stage drugs set to launch this year — a re­mark­able achieve­ment, es­pe­cial­ly as sev­er­al of them re­al­ly are tapped as block­busters.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER