Paris & London — Sofinnova Partners, a European life sciences venture capital firm, announced that its portfolio company Myricx Bio has agreed to be acquired by Novartis in a deal valued at up to $1.5 billion, including $1.1 billion in cash upfront and potential milestone payments.
The transaction marks Sofinnova Partners’ seventh exit in three years.
Myricx Bio is a UK-headquartered transatlantic biotech company focused on the discovery and development of a novel class of payloads for antibody-drug conjugates. The company’s platform is built around next-generation N-myristoyltransferase inhibitor payloads, or NMTi payloads, a differentiated mechanism of action designed to address the narrow therapeutic windows and tolerability challenges that have limited earlier generations of ADCs, including TOPO-1 and tubulin inhibitor payload classes.
Myricx Bio’s two lead ADC assets target B7-H3 and HER2 and are designed for use across a broad range of solid tumor types.
The company was spun out from Imperial College London and the Francis Crick Institute, with support from Cancer Research UK. It was founded by Professor Ed Tate, Roberto Solari and Andrew Bell, with seed investment from Sofinnova Partners and Brandon Capital in 2019. Sofinnova said it has supported the company from seed stage through the proposed acquisition.
The acquisition combines Novartis’ oncology expertise with Myricx Bio’s ADC assets and first-in-class NMTi payload platform, which the companies said has broad potential across multiple solid tumor settings. The combination is intended to accelerate development of more effective and better-tolerated therapies for cancer patients with limited treatment options.
“Myricx Bio is a powerful example of what European life sciences can produce when you combine world-class academic science with the right venture support from the very beginning. This acquisition by Novartis is not only a validation of Myricx Bio’s platform but a demonstration of what is possible when Europe backs its own innovation with conviction. That is precisely what Sofinnova exists to do,” said Antoine Papiernik, Chairman and Managing Partner of Sofinnova Partners.
Sofinnova said it helped shape Myricx Bio’s strategic direction, including supporting the company’s pivot from small-molecule development to an ADC payload platform. The company raised a £90 million, or about $114 million, Series A round in mid-2024 led by Novo Holdings and Abingworth, with participation from British Business Bank, Cancer Research Horizons, Eli Lilly, Brandon Capital and Sofinnova Partners.
The company expanded its operations under current Chief Technology Officer Robin Carr, Ph.D. Mohit Rawat joined as CEO in 2025 to guide the company through preclinical development and its next stage of growth.
“I first met Roberto and Ed at Imperial, long before any of this existed. The team at Myricx Bio has executed with exceptional discipline and ambition ever since, evolving the company from a seed hypothesis to a Novartis acquisition, and supporting them along that journey has been one of the great privileges of my career. This is the outcome our model is built to deliver: identifying exceptional science and people early and supporting them at every stage,” said Maina Bhaman, Partner at Sofinnova Partners.
Mohit Rawat, CEO of Myricx Bio, said, “This acquisition is a tremendous endorsement of the leadership of our NMTi-ADC platform, and the insights, innovation and achievements of our founders and team towards our mission of providing more effective and better tolerated therapeutic options for cancer patients. Together with Novartis, we look forward to building upon our work to transform the landscape of cancer treatment.”
Sofinnova said the deal underscores the depth of the European life sciences ecosystem and the growing clinical and commercial importance of differentiated ADC technology in cancer treatment.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
