Novartis, a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company, completed the acquisition of Vedere Bio, a developer of cutting-edge gene therapy products, for $280m, of which $150m Vedere Bio received upfront and will be eligible for up to $130m in milestone payments. "The medical need for new therapies to treat blindness is unambiguous. Vedere Bio's innovative technologies expand the potential for gene therapy to improve the lives of patients facing vision loss due to photoreceptor death attributable to a number of prevalent eye diseases," Jay Bradner, Novartis President of Institutes for BioMedical Research.