GSK to buy Nuvalent for $10.6 billion in cancer push

GSK agreed to buy Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Nuvalent in an all-cash deal valued at $10.6 billion, paying about $124 a share and a premium of roughly 40% to the biotech’s last close. The transaction is GSK’s largest acquisition in more than a decade and underscores how aggressively big pharma is bidding for cancer assets that can move faster than in-house discovery.

The timing reflects pressure well beyond oncology. GSK has been telling investors it can keep growing as older products face patent expiry later in the decade, including key protections on dolutegravir-containing HIV medicines that run to October 5, 2027 and December 8, 2029. Chief executive Luke Miels has also been working to defend a sales target of more than £40 billion by 2031, making a visible bolt-on deal in lung cancer as much a signal to markets as a scientific bet.

Nuvalent gives GSK three lung-cancer programs in one purchase. The lead assets are zidesamtinib, or NVL-520, a next-generation ROS1 inhibitor, and neladalkib, or NVL-655, a next-generation ALK inhibitor, both in late-stage development for non-small cell lung cancer and both already under U.S. Food and Drug Administration review for 2026 approval decisions. GSK said the target action date for zidesamtinib is September 18, 2026, with neladalkib set for November 27, 2026. The deal also brings in NVL-330, a HER2 inhibitor in phase I for HER2-altered NSCLC, along with Nuvalent’s preclinical portfolio.

For GSK, the appeal is not just near-term product access but a stronger foothold in targeted oncology, where therapies can command premium pricing if they improve outcomes or cut side effects. The company said the acquisition fits its strategy of buying assets with validated targets that address efficacy or tolerability gaps in standard care, and it added that the transaction should be accretive to sales and core operating profit in 2027 and to core EPS in 2029, including synergies and reprioritisation. GSK also said the deal creates a platform to expand work around Ris-Rez, its B7-H3 antibody-drug conjugate in phase III.

Investors read the move cautiously. GSK shares fell in London after the announcement, a sign that markets are weighing the price against execution risk even as the company pushes deeper into a lung-cancer arms race. With patent cliffs approaching in HIV and a crowded but lucrative oncology market still open to differentiated targeted drugs, the Nuvalent purchase looks like both a defensive hedge and a pipeline bet that could shape GSK’s growth profile well into the next decade.