Almost a year after buying Kate Therapeutics, Novartis has scooped up another San Diego-based muscle dystrophy biotech in one of the biggest acquisitions of 2025 so far.
The Swiss pharma is paying $12 billion for Avidity Biosciences and its three late-stage antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates. Novartis is justifying the hefty price tag by claiming the deal will “unlock multi-billion-dollar opportunities with planned product launches before 2030.”
Those hoped-for launches include delpacibart zotadirsen (del-zota), for which phase 1/2 data in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) impressed investors last year. The candidate, which uses an anti-TfR1 antibody to deliver an oligonucleotide to target cells, was tied to a statistically significant 25% increase in dystrophin production among people amenable to exon 44 skipping.
The rest of the late-stage RNA therapy pipeline is made up of delpacibart etedesiran (del-desiran), which is designed to reduce levels of DMPK in people living with myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), and delpacibart braxlosiran (del-brax) for the treatment of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).
Novartis is paying $72 per share of Avidity—a 42% increase to Avidity’s $49.15 price at close of trading Friday. This values the company at about $12 billion on a fully diluted basis, Novartis explained in a Oct. 26 release, equating to an enterprise value of about $11 billion at the deal’s expected closure in the first half of 2026.
That eleven-figure price tag makes the Avidity acquisition the second biggest pharma deal of the year—only surpassed by Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion buyout of central nervous system-focused Intra-Cellular back in January.
Despite all the cash on the table, not all of Avidity’s pipeline is coming over to Novartis. The biotech’s early-stage precision cardiology programs, which include candidates for rare genetic cardiomyopathies, will be spun out into a new company. This new entity will also retain responsibility for Avidity’s cardio-focused collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly.
Novartis is already an established player in the neuroscience space, thanks to multiple sclerosis drugs Kesimpta, Mayzent and Gilenya.
The pharma’s focus on Avidity’s neuroscience capabilities, which include a new way of delivering RNA medicines to muscle, makes sense in the context of the pharma’s wider M&A strategy. Back in November 2024, Novartis penned a $1.1 billion deal for Kate Therapeutics, which also had preclinical gene therapy programs aimed at DMD, DM1 and FSHD.
In Sunday’s release, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said Avidity’s “pioneering AOC platform for RNA therapeutics and its late-stage assets” would “bolster our commitment to delivering innovative, targeted and potentially first-in-class medicines to treat devastating, progressive neuromuscular diseases.”
“The Avidity team has built robust programs with industry-leading delivery of RNA therapeutics to muscle tissue,” Narasimhan added. “We look forward to developing these programs to meaningfully change the trajectory of diseases for patients.”
Many Big Pharmas have struggled with muscular dystrophy candidates, including Roche and its Sarepta Therapeutics-partnered Elevidys, which has been on a regulatory roller coaster this year related to reports of two deaths among patients who had received the gene therapy.
Avidity suffered its own setbacks in the past, notably a partial clinical hold placed on its DM1 therapy back in 2022 after a serious adverse event was reported in one patient. More recently, concerns from analysts about the safety data for del-zota appeared to have been assuaged by some fresh findings in March.
Avidity CEO Sarah Boyce said in yesterday’s release that the company has “expanded the possibilities of what RNA therapeutics can deliver to patients by advancing innovative science and creating an organization with a strong commitment to providing access to our potential medicines.”
“We are confident that this transaction with Novartis maximizes value for our investors and will support the global expansion of our neuroscience pipeline,” Boyce added.