Although December is typically one of the slower months in transaction announcements, the eHealth and Biotechnology sectors remained the most active with a total of 27 transactions, growing in proportion compared to December 2017. Biotechnology and e-Health transactions were roughly 19% of all of December 2017’s deals, but they were 28% this December.
However, price volume tells a different story. Compared to December 2017, the total of disclosed prices saw an 84% decrease in the Biotechnology sector, going from $2.66 billion to only $425 million. In the e-Health sector, however, there was a 1,285% increase in purchase amount, going from $88.8 million in December 2017 to $1.23 billion this December.
3M Company’s (NYSE: MMM) $1 billion acquisition of M*Modal’s e-Health business led the way in December. M*Modal’s technology platform provides cloud-based conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered systems that help physicians capture and improve a patients’ narrative to create more accurate health records.
3M plans to leverage this platform to expand its Health Information Systems business and deliver the new services to over 8,000 of its partner healthcare organizations. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2019.
Over in the biotechnology sector, Eli Lily and Company’s (NYSE: LLY) $130.45 million license deal with AC Immune SA (NASDAQ: ACIU) topped the list. The multi-year agreement will give Eli Lilly access to AC Immune’s proprietary Morphomer platform to see if the platform has any potential for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.