Happy Friday.
The current thing in tech and business is a California judge granting Anthropic a preliminary injunction for its supply chain risk designation by the Department of War.
Today’s lineupVisual AI Artist & Creative Billy Boman at 12:00 PM
Normal Computing Co-Founder & CEO Faris Sbahi at 12:45 PM
Overmatch General Partner Evan Loomis at 12:55 PM
Moda Founder & CEO Anvisha Pai at 1:10 PM
Fundrise Co-Founder & CEO Benjamin Miller at 1:20 PM
Shield AI Co-Founder & President Ryan Tseng at 1:30 PM
Why Is No One Talking About Excellergy?
Image: AlamyNovartis, the $300B Swiss pharma company, just paid $2B for a 5-year-old startup named Excellergy. It’s out of the sweet spot for typical tech news, so I get why no one is talking about it, but it’s a cool journey.
Alex Eggel, Ted Jardetzky, Luke Pennington, and Geoff Harris took their academic research from labs at Stanford and Bern to a VC-backed drug company. The goal was simple, a better allergy drug. Xolair is the current blockbuster drug in this category. When someone has an allergic reaction to food, allergy drugs act quickly to treat the reaction before it does lasting damage to the body.
The key immune molecule at the center of many allergic reactions is called IgE, and Excellergy’s lead program, EXL-111, targets IgE. The goal is to work faster, quiet the pathway more deeply, and ideally last longer between doses, which all make allergic reactions less severe.
Red Tree Venture Capital seeded the company in 2021, but the team spent several years in stealth before announcing their first big fundraise, a $70M Series A led by Samsara BioCapital. This is a typical flow for biotech startups: university science first, specialist capital second, public unveiling once the lead asset looks clinic-ready. By February of this year, Excellergy dosed its first Phase 1 subjects, and the Novartis deal was signed just weeks later.
I don’t want to diminish any hard work by reducing this to a playbook, but this really isn’t the Excellergy CEO’s first rodeo. Todd Zavodnick joined in 2025 and has seen this story twice before. First when he was at ZELTIQ, which Allergan acquired for about $2.4B, and second when he ran Dermavant, which Organon agreed to buy in 2024 for up to $1.2B.
This is not a wildly unexpected move by Novartis, the stock barely moved on the news. They made $1.7B of Xolair product sales in 2025, but this could potentially be the next act in the category. Key Xolair patents are about to expire, so a next-generation IgE asset is strategically valuable right now. Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan has previously outlined a broad acquisition playbook that’s focused on bolt-on deals in core areas such as immunology, and Excellergy sits squarely inside that plan.
Now the $2B headline acquisition price is split between an upfront payment and then milestones based on development or commercial targets, but it’s still a great outcome from start to finish. Also, no one likes experiencing or watching loved ones experience allergic reactions, so it’s great to see another arrow in the quiver of modern medicine.
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HeadlinesCNN: Judge blocks Pentagon’s effort to ‘punish’ Anthropic by labeling it a supply chain risk
Bloomberg: Claude AI Maker Anthropic Considers IPO as Soon as October
WSJ: The Inside Story of the Greatest Deal Google Ever Made: Buying DeepMind
Reuters: White House AI czar Sacks to step down, moves to advisory role
Bloomberg: Kushner’s Thrive Holdings in Talks to Raise at Least $2 Billion
The Information: OpenAI Surpasses $100 Million Annualized Revenue From Ads Pilot
Asia Times: Sophisticated drones attacked Louisiana’s Barksdale bomber base
The Free Press: Why Is OpenAI Dropping Video? To Focus On What Really Matters.
WSJ: Novartis to Buy Allergy-Drug Developer Excellergy for Up to $2 Billion
Bloomberg: Apple Plans to Open Up Siri to Rival AI Assistants in iOS 27 Update
WSJ: Orbital Data-Center Startup Aetherflux Raising New Financing at $2 Billion Valuation
WSJ: What I Hate Most About the Technology in Hotel Rooms
WSJ: Meet the ‘Corporate Bro’ Making Millions Satirizing Tech Sales
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