Novartis Buys Excellergy for $2B, Anthropic Vs. Pentagon, The Mansion Section | Diet TBPN
TL;DR
Novartis paid $2 billion for stealth biotech Excellergy after just five years, and the deal follows the classic biotech playbook almost perfectly — the company came out of Stanford/Berne research, raised a $70 million Series A led by Samsara BioCapital, dosed its first Phase 1 patients by February, and then sold to Novartis weeks later.
The real AI story in pharma isn’t “prompt cure cancer” — it’s shaving days off brutally complex FDA and clinical workflows — the hosts describe 10,000-page submissions where one bad comma or missing supplier detail can send a filing back to the end of the queue, making document-heavy automation an obvious win.
Excellergy’s CEO Todd Zavodnik looks like a serial biotech closer — he joined in 2025 and sold the company in under a year, after previously selling Zeltiq to Allergan for $2.4 billion and Dermavant for $1.2 billion.
Anthropic’s leaked “Mythos” model became a running joke, but the serious subtext is that frontier AI is getting more expensive and compute-constrained — the hosts riff on a possible jump from roughly $10/$25 input-output pricing to something like $100/$250, while noting users are already juggling subscriptions because API usage is often far pricier.
Anthropic scored a major early legal win against the Pentagon over its supply-chain-risk designation — citing Dean Ball, the show frames the California ruling as a devastating setback for the government and a sign Anthropic is likely to prevail on core constitutional and statutory arguments.
OpenAI’s ad business and Apple’s Siri rethink show AI distribution is quietly becoming the next battleground — OpenAI reportedly hit a $100 million annualized ad run rate in six weeks with 600 advertisers, while Bloomberg says Apple may let outside AI assistants effectively replace Siri via App Store integrations.
The Breakdown
The $2 Billion Biotech Exit Nobody in Tech Was Talking About
The show opens on Excellergy, a company so niche the hosts are half-laughing that no one’s discussing it — even though Novartis just bought it for $2 billion. Their point: this is a great example of the biotech playbook working exactly as designed, even if it doesn’t fit the usual software-news cycle.
Why AI Actually Matters in Pharma: FDA Paperwork Hell
The most grounded AI segment is about drug-company operations, not magic-discovery hype. They describe 10,000-page FDA filings where a tiny formatting issue or omitted supplier detail can get a submission bounced, and one host recalls writing Python scripts years ago just to do industrial-scale Word-document cleanup — “perfect for AI.”
What Excellergy Built, and Why Novartis Moved Fast
Excellergy’s lead program, EXL111, goes after IgE, the immune molecule at the center of many allergic reactions, with the goal of acting faster, hitting the pathway harder, and lasting longer than current options like Novartis’s blockbuster Zolair. Novartis made $1.7 billion from Zolair in 2025, those patents are nearing expiry, and this acquisition fits its bolt-on strategy almost too neatly.
The CEO Who Keeps Selling Companies for Billions
The hosts are openly in awe of Todd Zavodnik, who joined Excellergy in 2025 and sold it in less than a year. He’d already sold Zeltiq to Allergan for $2.4 billion and Dermavant for $1.2 billion, leading to jokes about wanting to be “the janitor at this company” and just taking all stock.
Anthropic’s “Mythos” Leak, Capybara Memes, and the Cost of Better Models
Then the mood shifts into full TBPN mode: yes, Anthropic was training a better model the whole time — shocker. They riff on the leaked “Mythos” branding, the capybara-themed model family, and whether these “friendly, cute, but also potentially the end of the world” systems will drive pricing from today’s roughly $10 in / $25 out toward much steeper territory.
Compute Scarcity Is So Real People Are Joking About Sleep Schedules
The funniest part is also revealing: Claude usage limits are pushing people into absurd optimization behavior, from subscription-hopping to jokes about polyphasic sleep and geographically distributed “prompt desks.” Underneath the bit is a serious observation — users are already close to justifying huge inference budgets, and the market is still discovering which non-codegen use cases will consume tokens at that level.
Anthropic vs. the Pentagon Turns Into a Big Legal Win
On the legal front, the hosts cover Anthropic winning a preliminary injunction against the Pentagon supply-chain-risk designation in California. Quoting Dean Ball, they frame it as a “staggeringly illegal act” and an attempted “corporate murder,” with broad amicus support reinforcing the sense that the government badly overreached.
IPO Odds, OpenAI Ads, Apple’s Siri Pivot, and the Mansion Detour
The back half becomes a fast-moving grab bag: Anthropic is suddenly up to 70% on Kalshi odds for an IPO, OpenAI’s ads business reportedly hit $100 million ARR in six weeks with 600 advertisers, and Apple may open Siri to outside assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini. Then, true to form, they swerve into the Wall Street Journal mansion section: Barry Diller buying JFK’s old Carlyle penthouse for $11 million, and an Irish energy exec in Tahoe who spent $800,000 building a ski-house bar so good that lost skiers wander in and get handed beers.