At the annual industry conference in San Francisco, Chief Executive Officer Vasant Narasimhan confirmed that Novartis will persist with its bolt-on acquisition approach to bolster its specialty medicines portfolio. He reiterated that the company’s capital allocation priorities—research and development, shareholder returns and targeted external investments—remain unchanged. Narasimhan cited the successful integration of last year’s oncology and gene-therapy assets, which contributed a combined 8% growth in that division’s revenues, as validation for the strategy. He added that Novartis has identified over a dozen small to mid-sized biotech targets focused on immunology and neuroscience, and has earmarked up to $5 billion in firepower for potential deals over the next 18 months.

Novartis has entered into a licensing agreement valued at nearly $1.7 billion with SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals to develop novel antibody treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Under the terms, Novartis will make an upfront payment of $300 million, with up to $1.4 billion in milestone payments tied to clinical and regulatory milestones, as well as tiered royalties on future net sales. The deal grants Novartis exclusive global rights to two preclinical candidates targeting tau protein aggregation. Novartis expects to begin Phase 1 trials by early next year and projects the program could contribute annual sales of $2 billion by 2030 if all milestones are met.