Biotech mergers and acquisitions explodes with 27.5 billion dollars of January deals

LONDON: Biotech deal-making is the hottest in more than a decade with $27.5 billion of transactions agreed this month and bankers reporting an above-average number of discussions that could lead to fresh activity through 2018.

France’s Sanofi and U.S.-based Celgene have led the charge, reflecting the desire of both large drugmakers and big biotech businesses to tap small and innovative upstarts as a key source of new medicines.

After a relatively subdued 2017, there is a renewed sense of confidence about M&A among acquirers who are hungry for promising assets to replenish drug pipelines, helped by U.S. tax cuts that have made it easier to deploy overseas cash.

• Sanofi’s acquisitions of Bioverativ for $11.6 billion and Ablynx for $4.8 billion


• Celgene’s $9 billion buyout of Juno Therapeutics, as well as Impact Biomedicines for an upfront $1.1 billion (and as much as $7 billion if certain milestones are reached)


• Varian Medical Systems’ acquisition of Sirtex Medical for $1.3 billion


• Takeda Pharmaceutical buying TiGenix for $630 million