AbbVie Gets Ahead of the Bad News Curve

by | Mar 10, 2016 5:08 pm | Pharmaceuticals

On March 11, Sanofi (NYSE: SNY)  and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) announced that an experimental rheumatoid arthritis therapy (salrilumab) helped patients more than AbbVie Inc.’s (NYSE: ABBV) Humira in a late-stage trial. But AbbVie already had a new deal in place, a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim, that was announced on March 7. Under terms of the agreement, AbbVie will make an initial upfront payment of $595 million to BI, which will be eligible to receive additional development and regulatory milestone payments and royalties on net sales of any drugs developed from this collaboration. At the center of the deal is BI 655066, an anti-IL-23 antibody now in Phase 3... Read More »

Leap Day Boosts February Deal Volume

by | Mar 4, 2016 9:27 pm | Behavioral Health Care, Biotechnology, eHealth, Hospitals, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Long-Term Care, Managed Care, Medical Devices, Other Services, Pharmaceuticals, Physician Medical Groups, Rehabilitation

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 »

Mylan Bags Meda AB on the Second Try

by | Feb 18, 2016 8:00 am | Pharmaceuticals

The pharmaceutical M&A sector has gotten very quiet in February, with just five deals announced as of Feb. 17. Compared with the 11 announced in January 2016 and 13 announced in February 2015, deal making has definitely slowed down. So it was good news to hear that Mylan NV (NASDAQ: MYL) agreed to pay $9.9 billion, including debt, to acquire Swedish generic drug maker Meda AB (STO: MEDA). Back in 2014, when Mylan was still based in the United States and known as Mylan, Inc., it made an unsuccessful run at Meda. Of course, late last year it carried on an all-out hostile takeover battle for Perrigo Company (NYSE: PRGO) that proved unsuccessful in the end. This time around, the Meda... Read More »

Biggest Health Care Deals in January 2016

by | Feb 4, 2016 8:00 am | Behavioral Health Care, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Pharmaceuticals

The pace of health care mergers and acquisitions slowed considerably in January 2016. In part, that’s due to the rush to get business off the books by the end of the calendar year, which is why fourth quarters are usually so busy. This year we’ve counted about 95 transactions announced in January, which is 32% lower than December 2015’s total, and 29% below January 2014. Thanks to Shire plc’s (NASDAQ: SHPG) $32 billion deal for Baxalta Inc. (NYSE: BXLT), spending in the month handily beat those previous months. But who would’ve thought a behavioral health care deal would rank as the month’s second largest deal? Check out the chart below. We’ll have... Read More »

2015 Health Care M&A Beats All Records

by | Jan 28, 2016 2:55 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

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 »