Quick Summary:

Novartis has entered a four-year flagship pact with Flagship Pioneering’s ProFound Therapeutics to discover and develop novel protein-based therapies for cardiovascular disease. The deal includes an upfront and near-term milestone payment of $25 million, with potential milestone payments of up to $750 million per selected target, as well as tiered royalties. The partnership will leverage ProFound’s proteome-mining platform to identify previously unknown drug targets, aiming to address the significant unmet need in cardiovascular medicine.

  • Novartis and ProFound Therapeutics have launched a four-year collaboration targeting cardiovascular disease.
  • Upfront and near-term milestone payments total $25 million to ProFound Therapeutics.
  • Potential downstream milestones could reach $750 million per drug target, plus royalties.
  • ProFound will use its proprietary ProFoundry™ platform to discover novel protein targets.
  • This follows Novartis’ recent $925 million acquisition of Anthos Therapeutics to further strengthen its cardiovascular portfolio.
  • The number of cardiovascular targets included in the deal has not been disclosed.

The announcement of Novartis’ flagship pact with ProFound Therapeutics marks a significant commitment to cardiovascular disease innovation and reinforces the company’s long-term ambitions in a therapeutic area that accounts for approximately 31% of global mortality. The four-year, milestone-driven partnership leverages the advanced proteome-mining capabilities of the ProFoundry™ platform, offering a blueprint for next-generation cardiovascular drug discovery. With up to $750 million per target on the table, this flagship pact is among the industry’s most significant early-stage financial commitments in cardiovascular R&D, designed to unlock new proteins as drug targets and redefine the future of first-in-class therapeutics.

Novartis’ strategy is clear: doubling down on cardiovascular disease through parallel investments in both innovative platforms and late-stage assets. This flagship pact builds on recent efforts, such as the $925 million upfront acquisition of Anthos Therapeutics for abelacimab, expanding the company’s presence across the cardiovascular disease spectrum and signaling a willingness to lead in uncharted therapeutic territories. This complements Novartis’ market-leading cardiovascular franchise, anchored by Entresto and Leqvio, and demonstrates a dual-pronged approach: adding both late-stage assets and upstream R&D platforms to its pipeline.

The flagship pact structure trends across the biopharma sector, where milestone-laden deals reduce execution risk and align incentives for early-stage partners. This model is increasingly favored for platform technologies aiming to address diseases with high unmet need and commercial potential. Notably, ProFound Therapeutics is also engaged in a multiprogram collaboration with Pfizer, another validation of the expanded proteome discovery model and a sign that industry leaders are racing to secure access to emerging target space.

For Novartis, the flagship pact builds on its legacy of cardiovascular investments while providing optionality to pursue multiple, as-yet-undisclosed targets. The open-ended nature of the agreement, coupled with high per-target milestone potential, positions Novartis to rapidly respond to scientific breakthroughs and evolving market requirements while maintaining a calculated approach to capital deployment.

Novartis’ partnership aims to deliver first-in-class therapies that can justify premium positioning, critical as Entresto faces looming generic competition and payer pushback grows for incremental innovations. The platform approach also aligns with evolving regulatory guidance favoring more personalized, mechanism-driven therapies in chronic cardiovascular conditions.

“This collaboration further validates the power of our ProFoundry Platform to go beyond traditional target discovery approaches by tapping into the vast, largely unexplored biology of the expanded human proteome. Together, we have the opportunity to accelerate the discovery of entirely new targets and support the development of transformative therapies to address the growing global burden of cardiovascular disease.”

– John Lepore, M.D., CEO, ProFound Therapeutics

With the cardiovascular market projected to reach $150 billion and grow at a 5.5% CAGR, the incentives to secure novel, patent-protected assets are substantial. Novartis’ pact with ProFound Therapeutics exemplifies a new breed of strategic collaboration: platform-centric, milestone-rich, and open-ended in scope. By combining deep cardiovascular development expertise with state-of-the-art target discovery, Novartis positions itself to shape the next decade of cardiovascular innovation, potentially outpacing peers that remain tethered to incremental advances.

In an era where premium pricing and real-world differentiation are prerequisites for commercial success, flagship pacts such as this will continue to dominate boardroom agendas across Big Pharma and biotech alike.