Novartis CEO plays down Cytokinetics buyout rumors in CNBC interview

No­var­tis CEO Vas Narasimhan threw cold wa­ter on the ru­mors about his com­pa­ny’s po­ten­tial ac­qui­si­tion of the biotech Cy­to­ki­net­ics.

In an in­ter­view on CN­BC, Narasimhan told Jim Cramer that while he couldn’t com­ment on spe­cif­ic deals, he said No­var­tis’ fo­cus is on “sub-$5 bil­lion as­sets.” Cy­to­ki­net­ics’ mar­ket cap is about $9 bil­lion to $10 bil­lion.

“While we look at larg­er deals, our M&A strat­e­gy is bolt-ons,” Narasimhan said on Tues­day. “We did 15 deals last year, all un­der $3 bil­lion. That’s where our over­all idea is to build a port­fo­lio of med­i­cines.”

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