Novartis acquires Advanced Accelerator Applications (2018)
Novartis paid US$3.9 billion for Advanced Accelerator Applications, a French-Italian radiopharma firm, gaining Lutathera, the first approved peptide receptor radionuclide therapy for neuroendocrine tumors.
Lutathera became a commercial success and proved there was a real market for targeted radionuclide therapy.
The deal drew Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb into radiopharma and made Novartis the category leader.
ITM-11 is a direct competitor to Lutathera, and the Telix-ITM merger is the first serious attempt to build a vertically integrated alternative to Novartis.
