Novartis is close to clinching an acquisition of Cytokinetics and its promising heart drug, as pharmaceutical companies companies continue to snap up fast-growing biotechs to replenish their pipelines. 

A purchase by the Swiss drug company of South San Francisco-based Cytokinetics, which has a market value of about $9 billion, could be completed as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the situation. Cytokinetics has been running a sale process and it is possible another suitor could re-emerge; there also may be no deal at all.