Novartis has agreed to acquire UK biotech Myricx Bio for up to $1.5 billion, paying $1.1 billion upfront in cash with the balance tied to milestones, in a move that deepens the Swiss drugmaker’s push into next-generation antibody drug conjugates.
Myricx is still preclinical, which makes the price notable. Novartis is not buying revenue or late-stage de-risking. It is buying a payload platform built around N-myristoyltransferase inhibitor technology and two lead ADC programs against B7-H3 and HER2, targets already familiar to oncology investors and drug developers. The wager is that Myricx’s chemistry can widen the therapeutic window that has constrained older ADC payload classes and, in turn, produce more usable drugs across solid tumors.
That matters because the ADC market has shifted from a target land grab to a payload and linker arms race. Once multiple companies can aim at the same antigen, differentiation moves downstream into tolerability, potency, and manufacturability. Novartis appears to be paying for that layer of control. If Myricx’s NMTi payloads translate in humans, the platform could be applied well beyond the first two assets.
The timing also says something about market structure. Acquire.fyi data shows the median health care deal size has climbed to $1.5 billion year to date, up 324.9% from a year earlier, suggesting buyers are willing to pay full strategic prices for assets that can fill pipeline gaps or create category leadership. In that context, Novartis is acting before broader clinical data turns a platform acquisition into a bidding war.
For Europe’s biotech ecosystem, the sale is another reminder that the region continues to generate high-value science but often monetizes it through trade sales rather than independent scale-up. Myricx was spun out of Imperial College London and the Francis Crick Institute, backed early by Sofinnova and Brandon Capital, then raised a £90 million Series A in 2024.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. Antitrust risk looks limited. Execution risk does not. Novartis now has to prove that a premium paid for preclinical ADC biology can be converted into a durable oncology franchise.
Source: Company press release and Acquire.fyi's proprietary data
