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Biopharma deal-making in 2017

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 17, pages 91–92 (2018)Cite this article

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The total value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in 2017 reached US$136 billion, according to Informa's Medtrack and Strategic Transactions, representing a 30% increase over 2016's $105 billion aggregate (Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 16, 161–162; 2017). The industries included in the value broadly cover biopharma, as well as consumer and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, drug delivery technologies, contract research and manufacturing and clinical trial services, but exclude devices, diagnostics, research tools, insurance (for example, the $77 billion merger between CVS and Aetna is excluded) and animal health.

At $30 billion, Johnson & Johnson's acquisition of Actelion Pharmaceuticals was the largest M&A deal of 2017. It boosted the large pharma company's assets in cardiology with Actelion's pulmonary arterial hypertension franchise, which includes bosentan (Tracleer) and the anticipated blockbuster follow-on product macitentan (Opsumit). Under the transaction, Actelion spun off drug discovery operations and some early-stage candidates into a separate company called Idorsia, in which Johnson & Johnson took a 16% stake, as well as an option on the phase II drug ACT132577 for resistant hypertension that it exercised in late 2017. Another notable biopharma acquisition in a breakthrough year for cell and gene therapies was Gilead Sciences' $11.9 billion takeover of Kite Pharma, which gained FDA approval last year for one of the first two chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell anticancer therapies, axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta).

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Figure 1: Biopharma deal-making in 2017.

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  1. Informa, 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, 10017, New York, USA

    Amanda Micklus & Steven Muntner

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  1. Amanda Micklus
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  2. Steven Muntner
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Correspondence to Amanda Micklus.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (figure)

Distribution of the 18 M&A deals in 2017 worth >US$1 billion by target focus. (PDF 213 kb)

Supplementary information S2 (table)

Top 10 partnership deals of 2017 by total announced deal value (PDF 136 kb)

Supplementary information S3 (figure)

Partnership deal activity in 2017 by phase of development. (PDF 115 kb)

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Micklus, A., Muntner, S. Biopharma deal-making in 2017. Nat Rev Drug Discov 17, 91–92 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2018.1

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