Novartis will continue to be on the lookout for bolt-on deals below $2 billion, CEO Vas Narasimhan said Tuesday on the pharma’s second quarter earnings call—though major pickups aren’t completely off the table.
Novartis has no plans to drastically change its business development strategy amid declining sales of its powerhouse cardiovascular drug Entresto.
“We’ll continue with our planned strategy in acquisitions,” CEO Vas Narasimhan said during a press call Tuesday morning to present the pharma’s second quarter earnings results. In particular, Narasimhan said the company will stick with bolt-on deals in the “sub-$2 billion range.”
The CEO was asked how the company views China’s increasingly prominent role in global biotech innovation and the spike in east-facing deals from Big Pharma.
What matters the most to Novartis, Narasimhan said, is the science. “Our strategy is to just go wherever the leading science is in a given therapeutic area or in a given technology area.”
As long as there is good data to back a particular candidate or platform, “We’re kind of geography-agnostic,” he continued.
Indeed, in January Novartis put forward $165 million upfront to partner with Shanghai- and Maryland–based SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals to advance a next-generation anti-amyloid therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. The pharma is on the hook for up to $1.5 billion if certain milestones are met.
A few months later, Novartis returned to China, promising a $480 million investment package to beef up the company’s drug development and manufacturing capabilities in the country.
A major transaction isn’t completely off the table, however, according to Narasimhan. “If we find an opportunity that’s attractive and fits with our goals, our platforms, our therapeutic areas, we’re always of course open to larger acquisitions,” he said on the call.
Novartis is maintaining its dealmaking pace as it rides out the fall from Entresto’s steep patent cliff from. In mid-2025, after failing to prevent the entry of generic versions into the U.S. market, the pharma’s blockbuster heart failure drug became open to copycat challenge. The competition has been harsh on Entresto sales, which plummeted 51% year-on-year to $1.18 billion in the second quarter.
Overall, Novartis saw a slight 1% year-on-year bump in Q2 revenue to hit $14.4 billion. Operating income, which came out to $4.75 billion, dipped 3% at constant currencies.
Key growth drivers included the breast cancer drug Kisqali, which surged 43% from the same period last year to bring in nearly $1.7 billion, as well as the multiple sclerosis therapy Kesimpta, which made over $1.4 billion in the second quarter, a 32% year-on-year growth. Pluvicto, a prostate cancer radiopharmaceutical agent, shot up 43% to hit $651 million.
Novartis’ top-performing asset in Q2 was the anti-inflammatory biologic Cosentyx, which booked $1.8 billion in sales.
