Novartis and Argo Biopharma go back to January 2024, when the pharma first bet up to $4.165 billion across two RNAi agreements targeting cardiovascular diseases.
Novartis and Shanghai-based Argo Biopharmaceutical are deepening their relationship with a new multibillion-dollar agreement that will see the partners work on multiple siRNA assets for cardiovascular targets.
Under the terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, Novartis will front Argo $160 million and commit up to $5.2 billion in milestone and option payments. Argo, meanwhile, will additionally be entitled to tiered royalties. Novartis and Argo first linked up in January 2024 with two license and collaboration agreements for investigational cardiovascular RNAi therapies. Those initial deals totaled $185 million upfront plus up to $4.165 billion in milestones.
Wednesday’s new agreement covers “multiple” cardiovascular candidates from Argo’s pipeline, though the companies did not specify how many assets they will work on together.
Argo brings to the table its siRNA drug discovery engine, which aims to produce more stable, long-acting siRNA molecules, according to its website.
These long-acting siRNA therapies “represent an important paradigm shift in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases,” Shaun Coughlin, global head of Cardiovascular and Metabolism at Novartis Biomedical Research, said in the companies’ announcement. The Argo agreements, he added, strengthen “our efforts to advance potential new therapies that address unmet medical needs.”
Novartis’ $5.2 billion-plus bet with Argo is the third—and heftiest—deal the pharma has signed in just over a week. On Aug. 26, Novartis put $772 million on the line in a collaboration with BioArctic, gaining access to its BrainTransporter platform to advance therapies for neurodegenerative diseases that can cross the blood-brain barrier. Then, on Tuesday, the pharma joined up with Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals to develop an RNAi therapy for Parkinson’s disease, paying $200 million upfront and pledging up to $2 billion in milestones.
Novartis has been busy in dealmaking this year. In June, for instance, the company signed a $750-million-per-target agreement with Flagship Pioneering’s ProFound Therapeutics for protein therapies for cardiovascular diseases.
And in April, the company paid $800 million upfront and bet up to $1.7 billion to acquire Regulus Therapeutics, gaining ownership of the oligonucleotide farabursen, being developed for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. A few months earlier, in February, Novartis dropped $3.1 billion to buy the privately held Anthos Therapeutics, gaining ownership of the anticoagulant antibody abelacimab.
