PE Firms Line Up for Pharmaceutical Targets

by | Aug 24, 2017 8:01 pm | Pharmaceuticals, Private Equity | 0 comments

Although pharmaceutical M&A has declined sharply over the past year, there has been an uptick in financial buyer activity in the sector in the first eight months of 2017. We don’t typically see a lot of financial buyers in this space, since they are easily outbid by strategic buyers that have the advantage of easy access to capital and cost synergies. Also, private equity buyers have been flocking to acquire “healthcare-lite” targets, such as eHealth or contract research organizations, in the past 12 months, largely to avoid potential regulatory and reimbursement roadblocks that come with a new administration. Pharmaceutical M&A is down 65% (only 55 deals) compared with the 156... Read More »

Second Quarter Health Care M&A Spending Tanks

by | Jul 6, 2015 2:30 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals | 0 comments

It’s still early yet, but we can say with confidence that the second quarter of 2015 doesn’t hold a candle to last year’s second quarter, at least dollar-wise. Last year, deal volume and value hit all-time highs for all previous Q2s, coming in at 325 deals and $135.8 billion in spending on those deals. This year, deal volume was fairly steady at 312 (remember, these are preliminary figures for Q2:15) but deal value plummeted 60% to $54.2 billion. We’ll have more details in the July issue of Health Care M&A News, but in the meantime, here are the biggest deals of Q2:15.  Read More »

Five Biggest Healthcare Deals in May 2015

by | Jun 1, 2015 7:06 pm | Pharmaceuticals | 0 comments

The last week of May slowed to a crawl as far as announced health care transactions, but preliminary totals for deal volume and value indicate that May 2015 wasn’t too shabby. As of May 29, we counted 101 healthcare transactions, with a combined total of $32.4 billion. A year ago, there were 109 M&A announcements, for a total of $27.5 billion. We’ll go into detail in the June issue of Health Care M&A News, so watch for the publication announcement later this week.  Read More »

Endo Tries to Upstage Valeant’s Bid for Salix

by | Mar 16, 2015 8:21 pm | Pharmaceuticals | 0 comments

It’s not over until the fat check arrives. That’s the story of Salix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SLXP), which last month accepted Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ (NYSE: VRX) $10.1 billion acquisition offer. Valeant thought it had snatched victory from Shire plc (NASDAQ: SHPG) and Endo International plc (NASDAQ: ENDP), which were also readying bids for the troubled Salix. Endo apparently wasn’t daunted, and last week came back with a cash and stock bid of approximately $11.1 billion. Stay tuned. Read More »