Unnatural Products Announces argenx Acquisition on November 9, Without Disclosing Deal Terms
Key Facts
Unnatural Products posted an announcement on its official website on November 9, 2026, saying argenx had acquired it, expanding a previous research relationship between the parties. The available information about the announcement included no documented details on the deal’s value or financial terms, so the figures circulating in accounts of the news cannot be attributed to the company. The announcement comes as argenx recorded strong growth in product sales in the third quarter. The company said net sales reached $1.7 billion, up 54% year over year and 13% from the previous quarter. The figures provide commercial context for a company expanding its work in drug discovery, but do not by themselves establish the acquisition’s financial impact.
Unnatural Products operates a platform that it describes as combining parallel experimentation and machine learning to address medicinal chemistry challenges involving macrocyclic peptides. This description places the company in the discovery of structurally complex peptide compounds, the area linked to the research collaboration it announced with argenx in 2025. Under that collaboration, Unnatural Products said the agreement included an upfront payment in the tens of millions of dollars, near-term payments, and up to about $1.5 billion in potential milestone payments, as well as royalties. These terms apply to the collaboration announced in 2025 and do not represent confirmed financial details of the acquisition announced in 2026. The previous agreement provides background to the relationship between the companies, while the financial scope of the consideration for the new deal remains unspecified in the available announcement.
Third-quarter results reflect the expansion of argenx’s commercial activity ahead of the acquisition announcement. The company reported product net sales of $1.7 billion in the third quarter of 2026, compared with $1.1 billion in the same period of 2025, according to its published figures. It said sales growth was 54% year over year and 13% quarter over quarter, measures that compare performance over a year and with the previous quarter. The company also reported sales of $4.5 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2026, compared with $2.9 billion in the same period a year earlier. The figures place the acquisition in the context of a company with rising sales, but do not on their own disclose the cost of the new deal or how it will be financed.
On liquidity, argenx said cash and cash equivalents and current financial assets totaled $3.7 billion on September 30, 2026. It said that balance followed a payment of about $2.1 billion for the acquisition of Forte Biosciences, net of cash acquired. The disclosure shows the company made a major acquisition during the year before its latest announcement, while retaining the stated financial assets at the end of September. But these figures concern its financial position after the Forte deal and do not show how much it will pay for Unnatural Products or whether the new acquisition involves cash or contingent consideration. argenx acquired Forte in a separate transaction, one of the developments relevant to its expansion in the immunology therapeutics sector.
Among the upcoming dates announced by argenx, the company expects initial results from the Phase 3 EMPASSION study of multifocal motor neuropathy in December 2026. The date puts a near-term clinical update on the company’s agenda alongside the Unnatural Products acquisition announcement. The company also set February 25, 2027, for the release of its fiscal 2026 results and a fourth-quarter business update. Those results will provide a view of full-year performance and fourth-quarter sales following the growth recorded in the third quarter, while the available acquisition announcement did not specify a completion date or other details of the steps involved. ARGX shares closed at $927.21 on November 6, 2026, according to EL7 data, before the November 9 announcement, so that price does not reflect the market’s response to the announcement.