AbbVie Buys a Pipeline
After only four deals announced in 2014 and 2015, AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) gained momentum in the M&A space this year in an effort to expand and diversify its portfolio. The timing isn’t a coincidence, since it faces the looming expiration of Humira’s patent in December. The drug that accounted for 63% of AbbVie’s 2014 sales could lose its dominant position in the autoimmune disease market as competitive generics take the field. In the first four months of 2016, AbbVie has dished out $6.4 billion on three deals (two collaborations and one acquisition). On March 7th, the company announced a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim that added anti-IL-23 to its immunology pipeline. The... Read More »Biotechnology Deals, 2006 to 2015
The biotechnology sector has had some ups and downs in recent years, to put it mildly. After a strong start in the first quarter of 2015, when 62 transactions were recorded, deal volume slowed considerably, to only 20 deals in the fourth quarter of 2015. One of the strongest headwinds has been the criticism of the pharmaceutical industry for the high prices charged for certain drugs. Presidential candidates and federal legislators have called for hearings on this issue, which caused some investors to pull back in this and the pharmaceutical sector. Read More »Leap Day Boosts February Deal Volume
It’s Leap Year, which means February was a day longer in 2016. This year, that extra day marked the announcement of seven healthcare transactions, which raised the month’s total to a healthy 113 deals. The services sectors were more active than usual, and accounted for 65% of the total. Usually, the services side makes up about 55% to 60%. Dollar volume was healthy, too, at $27.7 billion. But given the records set in 2015, February’s dollar total ended up 35% below the same month a year ago. The deals may be getting smaller, but they’re still being made. Read More »2015 Health Care M&A Beats All Records
It’s déjà vu all over again. 2014 was a record-breaker for health care M&A, with 1,317 transactions and spending at an astronomical $387 billion. Then 2015 came and went and, once again, we’re writing about a record-breaking number of transactions, 1,460 currently, and astronomical spending of $563 billion. Read More »Agenus on a roll in 2015
Agenus Inc., an immunology company developing novel checkpoint modulators, vaccines and adjuvants to treat cancer, acquired Phoslmmune Inc. last week. Phoslmmune is an immunotherapy company that has discovered a new portfolio of cancer neoantigens. Its equity holders will receive an upfront payment of $2.5 million in cash and $7.4 million in shares of Agenus common stock at closing, plus milestone payments of up to $35 million in cash and/or stock. This acquisition gives Agenus the capacity to expediate the development of new cancer vaccines and other single-agent immuno-oncology approaches, as well as combination therapies. And the deal most likely caps a healthy year for Agenus, which... Read More »Schedule a demo
Gain access to the best healthcare and long-term care investment intelligence, data, and analysis.
