novartis got a warm reception from investors tuesday when the company said it would repurchase up to 15 billion of its own stock by 2025 novartis adrs were up more than 4 in new york at midday after the company announced the buyback and reported strong second quarter results ceo vas narasimhan said novartis would maintain flexibility to buy up smaller drug developers if such deals make sense even as it buys back its own stock but companies typically repurchase their own stock in large quantities if executives don’t think outside investments will generate a better return for shareholders that could be a warning sign for biotech investors betting their publiclytraded company is the next pharma buyout target smaller companies in the sector often don’t have sales or profits so the perceived likelihood of an acquisition can heavily influence their market value an exchangetraded fund of small and midsize biotech stocks edged higher on tuesday and has gained about 5 so far this year underperforming many categories of speculative stocks