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First Half of 2016 Shows Strength in M&A

by | Aug 11, 2016 7:53 pm | Biotechnology, eHealth, Long-Term Care, Pharmaceuticals, Private Equity

Ever since the rally in health care mergers and acquisitions began in 2014, we’ve been waiting for the inevitable slam-on-the-brakes quarter. That rally was sparked by the advent of newly insured families and individuals entering the healthcare market, beginning on January 1, 2014. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, health care M&A topped 1,000 transactions that year and has never looked back. Isn’t it about time for the party to end? Not according to our data for the first six months of 2016, compared with the same period in 2014 and 2015. (But if you read our monthly M&A roundup on page 18, you may have second thoughts.) In the first half of 2016, deal volume... Read More »

Pfizer Buys into Gene Therapy

by | Aug 3, 2016 5:28 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals

Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) interest in the field of gene therapy just got real. The pharma giant just spent $193 million to pick up Bamboo Therapeutics Inc., a privately-held biotechnology company that focuses on therapies for rare and devastating central nervous system (CNS) and neuromuscular diseases. In the first quarter of 2016, Pfizer acquired 22% of Bamboo’s fully diluted equity for $43 million. On August 2, the company announced that it had acquired the remaining equity for an upfront payment of $150 million. Bamboo Therapeutics is also eligible to receive milestone payments of up to $495 million. Since 2014, Pfizer has established gene therapy-based collaborations, research and... Read More »

Kite Pharma Soars with Two T-Cell Acquisitions

by | Jul 29, 2016 4:09 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals

Kite Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: KITE) has been busy lately, announcing two separate license deals in the last week of July. On July 25, it acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to technology that advances the development of off-the-shelf allogeneic T-cell therapies from renewable pluripotent stem cells, also known as the ATO system, in a deal with the University of California, Los Angeles. In connection with this agreement, Kite entered into a sponsored research agreement with UCLA to support ongoing preclinical research for the ATO system. Two days later, Kite entered into a license agreement with the National Institute of Health for the license to its fully human anti-CD19 chimeric antigen... Read More »

LabCorp Ventures into Prenatal Testing

by | Jul 27, 2016 7:53 pm | Biotechnology, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis

LabCorp (NYSE: LH), the world’s leading healthcare diagnostics company, has acquired Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM), a pioneer in non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for reproductive health, for a total purchase price of $371 million. In July of 2014, Sequenom purchased a license for non-invasive prenatal testing patents and applications from privately-held Mayo Medical Laboratories, and two months later it acquired intellectual property from privately-held Isis Innovation for non-invasive prenatal testing intellectual property. Today, Sequenom is the first laboratory to offer a clinically validated NIPT test (MaterniT®21), which has completed more than 500,000 tests to date. LabCorp’s most... Read More »

June 2016 M&A Results Show Strength

by | Jul 18, 2016 2:09 pm | Behavioral Health Care, Biotechnology, eHealth, Home Health & Hospice, Hospitals, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Long-Term Care, Managed Care, Medical Devices, Other Services, Pharmaceuticals, Physician Medical Groups, Rehabilitation

Uncertainty is the hobgoblin of the merger and acquisition markets, and the month of June was a high point (or low point, depending on your perspective) for anxiety in global financial markets. Still, the healthcare deals kept rolling in. Our preliminary total for June 2016 stands at 115 transactions, exactly equal with the same month a year ago. Compared with May’s total of 141 deals, though, June’s total does look as if someone is applying the brakes. It takes 12 months to make a year, though, and one month’s results do not create a trend. The digital health sector turned in the strongest gain compared with June 2015, when only two deals were announced. This June, 22 deals were announced... Read More »

Cells Sell…to GE At Least

by | Jul 13, 2016 6:51 pm | Biotechnology, Medical Devices

GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of GE (NYSE:GE), recently announced that it had acquired a privately-held Sweden-based company, Biosafe Group SA, a developer, manufacturer and supplier of products for cell processing in the areas of adult stem cell banking. The combined biological, engineering and industrial capabilities should advance cell therapy and cellular immunotherapy GE’s interest in cellular research is not new. In January 2016, GE Ventures completed a $31.5 million co-investment with the Canadian government to create the BridGE@CCRM Cell Therapy Centre of Excellence in order to promote new technologies for the product of new cellular therapies in Toronto. Then, in April, GE Ventures... Read More »