Novartis Looks to Buy French Firm to Bolster Cancer Portfolio Typically, large companies in the industry have made a major impact on merger activity in the wider health care sector, often buying up smaller drugmakers with emerging treatments rather than spending billions of dollars on their own research and development. LONDON — The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis said on Monday that it had offered to buy Advanced Accelerator Applications of France for $3.9 billion in cash, as it seeks to bolster its portfolio of cancer treatments. But the total size of such acquisitions has slowed in 2017, as many big pharmaceutical companies have concentrated on integrating purchases made in recent years, rather than pushing through new takeovers. Advanced Accelerator Applications, based in St.-Genis-Pouilly, France, employs more than 550 people at 21 production and research-and-development facilities in 13 countries.
