Novartis has entered into an agreement to acquire Chinook Therapeutics, a Seattle, WA, based clinical stage biopharma company, for a total value of up to $3.5 billion with the transaction being in the form of a merger of Chinook and a newly formed Novartis subsidiary. Chinook will receive $3.2 billion in cash upon closing, plus up to $0.3 billion based on the achievement of certain regulatory milestones.   The acquisition adds two late-stage medicines in development for rare, severe chronic ki...