Novartis Agrees to Acquire Myricx Bio in Push for Next-Generation ADCs

Editor’s Take: Novartis continues to bolster its strategic therapeutic portfolios through corporate acquisitions, strategic alliances, and manufacturing agreements. In October, the company agreed to acquire Avidity Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company focused on a new class of therapeutics enabling RNA delivery to muscle.

Novartis has agreed to acquire Myricx Bio, a privately held UK-based biotechnology company developing a new class of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), using N-myristoyltransferase inhibitor (NMTi) payloads.

The proposed acquisition would strengthen the Novartis oncology pipeline and advance next-generation targeted drug conjugates with novel payload mechanisms. Myricx’s approach is designed to deliver a differentiated cancer-killing payload directly to tumor cells, with the potential to address limitations of commonly used ADC payload classes such as TOPO-1 inhibitors. Myricx is developing two lead assets directed towards the targets B7-H3 and HER2, with potential across multiple solid tumor settings.

“ADCs have become an important part of cancer treatment, but there remains a clear need for new payload mechanisms to overcome resistance and expand their impact for patients,” said Fiona Marshall, President of Biomedical Research at Novartis. “Myricx Bio has developed a promising NMTi payload platform with a differentiated mechanism that could broaden the use of ADCs across multiple tumor settings.”

NMT is an enzyme that helps important proteins function inside cells, which is essential for how cancer cells grow and survive. By inhibiting NMT, Myricx’s payload is designed to disrupt critical processes that cancer cells rely on. Preclinical data suggest this novel NMTi payload may have broad activity across solid tumors, including TOPO-1 resistant models, and may enable more effective use of ADCs in settings where existing payload classes have limitations.

More broadly, this agreement would give Novartis the opportunity to help establish NMTi, if clinically validated, as a new class of ADC payloads that could be applied across additional targets and platforms. 

Other Pharma Industry Acquisitions

Check out Contract Pharma’s Pharmaceutical Industry Mergers & Acquisitions Roundup.