Less than a year after launching and only days after advancing its lead program into clinical trials, drug developer IFM Tre is in line to be acquired by Novartis.

According to an agreement announced Monday, Novartis (NYSE: NVS) will acquire all of the outstanding stock of privately held IFM. The Basel, Switzerland-based pharmaceutical giant will also pay IFM an upfront fee, plus milestone payments pegged to the progress of its experimental drugs. No other financial details of the agreement were disclosed.

Boston-based IFM focuses on developing anti-inflammatory drugs that target NLR, a group of proteins responsible for detecting cellular threats…. Read more »

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