Endocyte bought by Novartis for $2.1bn

Novartis has bought Nuclear medicine firm Endocyte, boosting its pipeline and raising its sales forecasts for the year.
Novartis plan to merge Endocytes’ portfolio with newly formed subsidiary, Advanced Accelerator Applications to focus on radiopharmaceutical drugs for cancer.
Novartis believes that radiopharma is a key growth driver for the company. Endocyte offer ‘significant sales potential’ with their 177 Lu-PSMA-617, a first in class drug created for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. It’s currently at phase 3 registration trial, where its use is being tested to see if it can be extended into earlier stage prostate cancer as well as other early stage development programmes.