No­var­tis beefs up gene ther­a­py pipeline, spend­ing $87.5M on an Avro­bio ther­a­py

The ru­mors were some­what true.

No­var­tis is buy­ing a piece of the gene ther­a­py mak­er Avro­bio for $87.5 mil­lion in cash, three months af­ter re­ports sur­faced that the Big Phar­ma was con­sid­er­ing buy­ing the Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech at a val­ue as high as quadru­ple its worth.

Avro­bio dis­closed Mon­day morn­ing that the deal will ex­tend the com­pa­ny’s cash run­way by three quar­ters — tak­ing it in­to the fi­nal quar­ter of 2024 — af­ter sell­ing a cysti­nosis gene ther­a­py pro­gram to No­var­tis.

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