August Deal Flow Ebbs, as It Follows the Annual Cycle

August Deal Flow Ebbs, as It Follows the Annual Cycle

Enough about slowdowns and recession. August is typically a roller-coaster month in the equity markets and August 2019 didn’t disappoint in that regard. The bond markets’ inverted yield curve persisted into September and that’s never a good sign. We’re moving on. Preliminary data show August’s deal volume wasn’t so bad, considering how most of 2019 has played out. The 125 deals announced in August represent a drop of 8% compared with the previous month’s 136 deals, and a 27% drop compared with August 2018. After a record-setting year in 2018, with more than 1,900 transactions and $333.3 billion on the books, a repeat would be nearly as scary as a sudden downturn (which may be coming,... Read More »
Big Pharma Deals Aren’t Back, Despite Allergan Deal

Big Pharma Deals Aren’t Back, Despite Allergan Deal

The last round of Big Pharma mergers and acquisitions peaked in 2014 and ran out of steam in 2016. In 2014, the sector set a record of 188 deals (+25% yoy) and another record for spending, at $213.3 billion (+221% yoy). 2014 was the year Dublin-based Actavis plc (then NYSE: ACT) acquired Allergan, Inc. (NYSE: AGN) for $66 billion, and changed its name to Allergan plc. At the time, the Irvine, California-based company was fighting a hostile takeover by Canadian drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (now known as Bausch Health Companies – NYSE: BHC). The original price was a combination of $129.22 in cash and 0.3683 Actavis shares for each share of AGN common stock. Based on... Read More »
Envy Medical Purchased by Allergan

Envy Medical Purchased by Allergan

Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) acquired Envy Medical, Inc. this week in an effort to bolster its medical aesthetics portfolio. Envy Medical develops, markets, and sells non-invasive skin rejuvenation therapies for patients suffering from dermatologic or aesthetic conditions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal will also give Allergan a key product out of Envy Medical’s portfolio, Dermalinfusion. The item is a non-surgical, non-invasive skin resurfacing system. It is sold in more than 30 countries and has a global install base of over 3,800 units in physician offices and medical spas. This is not the first deal Allergan has made to build up its aesthetics portfolio. In September... Read More »
Bristol-Myers Squibb Surprises with Celgene Deal

Bristol-Myers Squibb Surprises with Celgene Deal

Twas a week before the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Summit, and everything was quiet on the life sciences front. December deal-making hit a wall, with pharmaceutical deals falling 50% compared with last December. Then came Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (NYSE: BMY) announcement it was acquiring Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) for approximately $90 billion. This isn’t the biggest pharma or healthcare deal ever, however. The title goes to Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), for both the largest deal consummated ($114 billion for Warner-Lambert Company in November 1999) and the largest deal to be called off ($160 billion for Allergan plc in November 2015). Those facts make this the third largest... Read More »
Envy Medical Purchased by Allergan

Allergan Doubles Down on Aesthetics

September 14 was a big day for Allergan plc’s (NYSE: AGN) medical aesthetics business. The company announced its acquisition of Bonti, Inc., a privately held clinical-stage biotech that develops novel, fast-acting neurotoxin programs for aesthetic and therapeutic applications. Later that same day, Allergan hosted a Medical Aesthetics Day in New York, at which its chief commerical officer, Bill Meury, said the company expects the unit to generate between $7 billion and $8 billion in sales by 2025. The business unit generated $3.8 billion in 2017. Allergan’s Medical Aesthetics unit includes the famous neurotoxin Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA), which was first approved in 1989 and... Read More »