No­var­tis CEO Vas Narasimhan cuts loose an old an­chor and sets sail with $8.7B AveX­is buy­out

Vas Narasimhan is start­ing his tenure as CEO of No­var­tis $NVS with a bold move on the gene ther­a­py front.

The phar­ma gi­ant has struck a deal to buy AveX­is for $8.7 bil­lion in cash, scoop­ing up the biotech as it looks to par­lay im­pres­sive ear­ly-stage re­sults for their gene ther­a­py AVXS-101 for spinal mus­cu­lar at­ro­phy in­to a swift FDA ap­proval.

The deal reg­is­ters at $218 a share $AVXS, al­most dou­ble AveX­is’ Fri­day close. And it un­der­scores a few key points about Narasimhan’s man­age­ment style.

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