No­var­tis adds $3.2B cash deal to M&A tal­ly, snap­ping up Chi­nook and its late-stage kid­ney drugs

No­var­tis is putting down $3.2 bil­lion in cash to ac­quire kid­ney-fo­cused biotech Chi­nook Ther­a­peu­tics and its two late-stage drugs for a rare chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease.

The Swiss phar­ma gi­ant al­ready has a top drug, ip­ta­co­pan, that it said showed promise in IgA nephropa­thy, which CEO Vas Narasimhan de­scribed in a state­ment as a “dev­as­tat­ing dis­ease most­ly af­fect­ing young adults and po­ten­tial­ly lead­ing to dial­y­sis or kid­ney trans­plan­ta­tion.” But Chi­nook’s atrasen­tan and zi­gak­ibart could rep­re­sent ad­di­tion­al “much-need­ed” op­tions, he sug­gest­ed.

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