The Top 10 Biopharma M&A Deals of 2024
Despite an apparent return to dealmaking grandeur in 2023, the biopharma industry’s appetite for large-scale mergers and acquisitions was notably more muted over the past 12 months.
And, while 2025 may not see a return to major outlays, plenty more transactions are likely to transpire as large pharmas look to deploy their cash, multiple analyst groups contend.
While the overall volume of pharma and life sciences M&A activity was healthy in 2024 versus historic levels, deals trended toward the smaller side, reducing the total deal value observed for the year, PwC analysts wrote in a recent report. All told, the number of M&A transactions across those sectors declined 8% over the last 12 months versus 2023, while total deal value fell 2%, according to the report.
That perspective largely tracks with observations made by analysts at Leerink Partners in their own M&A showcase from October, which found that the 22 acquisitions made up to that point fell below the count for 2023 but surpassed full-year biopharma deal tallies for 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Nevertheless, the Leerink team observed that there were “significantly fewer large transactions in 2024.” Based on recent executive comments, that appetite for small or midsized deals—plus those focusing on early- or midstage assets—may be here to stay.
Taking a closer look at the top transactions of 2024, Novo Holdings’ $16.5 billion buyout of CDMO stalwart Catalent—which closed in late December—marked the year’s biggest deal by value.
The merger, which will see drugmaker Novo Nordisk purchase three Catalent fill-finish facilities from Novo Holdings for $11 billion—was mired by industry and lawmaker scrutiny throughout 2024. The deal raised concerns from the likes of Eli Lilly and Roche executives as well as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, who called upon the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in October to “carefully scrutinize” the merger over competition and drug pricing concerns.
Another late entrant to 2024’s life sciences M&A roster was private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice’s 16 billion euro acquisition of Sanofi’s consumer health business Opella, which is expected to close in 2025’s second quarter at the earliest.
Sanofi’s decision to shed its consumer health arm follows a growing trend among large pharmas marked by similar moves from GSK, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
Beyond those two deals, the value of the transactions logged last year dropped off sharply.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ $4.9 billion purchase of Alpine Immune Sciences marked the third biggest deal last year as well as 2024’s top biotech transaction, giving Vertex access to a dual B-cell cytokine agonist that Alpine has said has best-in-class potential as a treatment for IgA nephropathy.
By comparison, Pfizer inked 2023’s largest buyout with its $43 billion purchase of cancer specialist Seagen, followed by Bristol Myers Squibb’s $14 billion Karuna Therapeutics acquisition and Merck & Co.’s $10.8 billion deal for Prometheus Biosciences.
As for what to expect in 2025, PwC’s analyst team has said it expects to see sustained activity for transactions between $5 billion and $15 billion, noting that incoming new leaders at the U.S. Department of Justice and the FTC could assuage some concerns that prevented bigger deals from taking shape over the past few years.
On that front, President-elect Donald Trump recently nominated FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to head up the U.S. antitrust agency, signaling the end of the tenacious tenure of outgoing Chair Lina Khan.
Ferguson has been heralded as an overall net positive for biopharma dealmaking, with industry watchers speculating he will employ a lighter touch than Khan did. Khan, for her part, made a name for herself taking a hard stance against drugmakers and launching campaigns to further scrutinize healthcare M&A, embrace “march-in” rights and challenge patents her agency claimed were improperly listed in the FDA’s Orange Book.
Looking past the regulatory landscape, large-cap biopharmas are likely to display a sustained interested in M&A in the coming months, though the focus seems to remain fixed on small to medium and early- to midstage deals, analysts at Leerink Partners wrote in their October report.
Oncology remains an area of intense interest for drugmakers, sparking deals around immune therapeutics, cell therapies and targeted drugs, the Leerink team said. Meanwhile, immunology has also been a consistent motivator for major transactions.
Throughout 2024, the largest number of deals revolved around immunology and inflammation, followed by oncology, rare diseases and cardiovascular and metabolic, the Leerink team said.
1. Novo Holdings and Catalent
By Zoey Becker
Deal value: $16.5 billion
Premium: 16.5% above prior closing price
Date announced: Feb. 5
Novo Holdings’ $16.5 billion buyout of CDMO giant Catalent put a new twist on the fierce obesity market battle between GLP-1 drugmakers Novo Nordisk and rival Eli Lilly.
Specifically, Novo Holdings picked up Catalent for $63.50 per share in cash, making for a 16.5% premium to the closing price of Catalent’s stock on the Friday before the announcement. Wegovy and Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk stands to gain ground with the highly coveted manufacturing capacity it is in line for through the deal, as it plans to buy three of Catalent’s fill-finish sites from Novo Holdings for $11 billion upfront.
The move is expected to “gradually increase” the company’s filling capacity from 2026 and onward, the Danish drugmaker said in a statement at the time of the announcement. Novo and Novo Holdings both operate under parent company the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
The proposed buyout raised eyebrows almost immediately. Eli Lilly, which also uses Catalent’s services for its competition GLP-1 products, was left with “questions about that transaction,” former Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi said on a conference call the day after the Catalent deal was announced.
The concern wasn’t just limited to companies that currently operate within the GLP-1 space. Roche’s CEO Thomas Schinecker called the deal a potential “problem for other smaller players” if it were to signal a restriction on currently available contract manufacturers.
Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, in October inked a letter to the outgoing chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan, urging the antitrust agency to “carefully scrutinize” the merger and voicing concerns that the deal could increase Novo’s “dominance” over GLP-1 drugs, reduce competition and increase prices for patients. Warren emphasized the potential of Novo to gain “unprecedented visibility” over its competitors’ business practices and production capacity or otherwise hinder Lilly’s use of Catalent’s manufacturing services.
A dozen consumer groups and trade unions echoed similar sentiments through their own letter to the FTC, stressing that there was “no adequate remedy that resolves the competition concerns raised by this transaction” and raising concerns for other companies looking to get into the space, such as Viking Therapeutics, Pfizer, Roche and AstraZeneca.
Novo, however, has said it will “honor all existing contracts” at the Catalent sites it’s set to buy and is “not aware” of any competing GLP-1 drugs being made at the three sites, a spokesperson previously told Fierce Pharma.
The FTC ultimately declined to challenge the buyout, Bloomberg reported, allowing the deal to clear all regulatory closing conditions in December. The FTC represented the final hurdle to the merger after the European Commission blessed the companies with an “unconditional approval” in early December.
Catalent has been in the GLP-1 game since 2017, making it a “top-positioned CDMO” to support the booming market, CEO Alessandro Maselli said in a presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January 2024.
Manufacturing capacity has been top of mind for both Novo and Lilly since rolling out their respective obesity products. While Novo made a major move with its latest M&A play, Lilly has been pouring billions into its own manufacturing plants, most recently with a $3 billion expansion to the plant it purchased from Nexus Pharmaceuticals in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
2. Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Sanofi's Opella
By Zoey Becker
Deal value: 8 billion euros
Premium: N/A
Date announced: Oct. 21
Sanofi offloaded a 50% controlling stake in its consumer health business Opella through a deal with private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, joining a slew of drugmakers that have made similar moves in divesting their own consumer health businesses.
With the agreement, which is expected to close during the second quarter of 2025 at the earliest, the French pharma looks to focus “even more in bringing innovative solutions to patients suffering from debilitating or life-threatening diseases or viruses such as RSV, COPD, or multiple sclerosis,” Sanofi’s CEO Paul Hudson said in a release at the time of the announcement.
ODDO BHF analysts saw the value in the move as well.
“Exiting, even partially, from its consumer franchise will allow Sanofi to reallocate its capital to research and business development,” the ODDO analysts wrote. “However, we believe that Sanofi's first priority will be to use part of its capital to offset the mechanical loss of this business through a share buyback.”
It was a path Hudson had been eyeing since at least 2023, when he had initially floated the idea. The business quickly drew interest from multiple private equity firms including Advent International and Blackstone, Bloomberg reported in February. By June, the remaining interested parties were told to provide bids, and talks ramped up in September.
Although CD&R is a U.S.-based company, Opella will remain in Sanofi’s home country of France, much to the relief of French unions that had initially urged Sanofi staffers to protest against the deal with a strike.
Opella boasts a workforce of 11,000 employees across 100 countries and has 13 manufacturing sites plus four research and innovation centers. The company markets popular brands such as antihistamine Allegra, stomach cramp reliever Buscopan, Selsun Blue shampoo, pain treatments Icy Hot and Gold Bond and non-opioid pain reliever Doliprane, which is France’s top-selling drug. The collection of products represented a sizable 11% chunk of Sanofi’s total sales in 2023, drumming up 5.2 billion euros ($5.6 billion).
The CD&R deal is based on total enterprise value for Opella of 16 billion euros, Sanofi said.
The business is the third largest worldwide in the over-the-counter and vitamins, minerals and supplements market, an industry with sustainable growth driven by “long-term trends” such as aging populations, rising income levels and greater health awareness in general, Sanofi said in a release. Still, CD&R has identified “significant opportunities” to boost the company’s market leadership, the firm’s president of European healthcare Eric Rouzier pointed out in a statement.
Sanofi will still remain a major shareholder of the company, while French public sector investment bank Bpifrance will buy a 2% stake and take over a seat on the Opella board.
The 50% stake sale came after Sanofi previously sold several of its consumer health brands to Germany’s Stada in a deal that covered products such as allergy eye drops Lomudal and Opticrom, pain relief med Antistax and Omnivit vitamins, to name a few.
GSK handed off 15 of its over-the-counter products to Stada, too, in 2020, setting up the company’s eventual move to spin out its consumer healthcare business into a standalone company, which is now known as Haleon. Johnson & Johnson’s consumer health business similarly flew the nest as Kenvue, as did Novartis’ Sandoz, reflecting a prominent industry trend from the last few years.
3. Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Alpine Immune Sciences
Deal value: $4.9 billion
Premium: 67% above closing price from two days prior
Date announced: April 10
Vertex pulled off the largest acquisition in its 35-year history when it scooped up nine-year-old Seattle company Alpine Immune Sciences, which develops protein-based immunotherapies for cancer and inflammatory diseases.
The acquisition brings povetacicept, a cytokine agonist that targets both the B-cell activating factor (BAFF) and the proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL). While it is lined up to become a first-in-class treatment for the kidney disease IgA nephropathy (IgAN), povetacicept’s ultimate value lies in the possibility that it could treat a variety of autoimmune disorders.
On a conference call on the day that Vertex announced its buyout, Chairman Jeffrey Leiden said the potential versatility of povetacicept reminded him of his days as chairman at Abbott, when the company was developing megablockbuster Humira in its formative years.
“By way of its mechanism of action—dual inhibition of BAFF and APRIL, which interdict on different parts of the B-cell maturation and proliferation pathway—povetacicept holds the promise of a pipeline in a product for a number of B-cell-driven serious diseases,” Leiden said.
Vertex emerged in a heated competition between five companies to acquire Alpine, according to a regulatory filing. The Massachusetts company won out with a $65-per-share bid. It was a 67% premium on Alpine’s price two days before the acquisition was announced and a 37% premium on its price at the close of the market the following day after Bloomberg reported that Alpine was considering its options after attracting takeover interest.
The excitement for Alpine was triggered in November 2023 when it reported eye-opening results from a phase 2 trial with IgAN patients. An 80-mg dose of povetacicept taken every four weeks reduced the urine/protein creatinine ratio—a measure of how well the kidneys are clearing waste—by 64% over 36 weeks. Alpine has launched a phase 3 study in the indication and is testing the drug in patients with lupus and autoimmune cytopenias.
“We believe the acquisition is a strong strategic fit for Vertex, who can leverage their resources and expertise in large-scale clinical development and commercial experience/infrastructure in specialty markets to maximize the value of pove,” Thomas Smith, an analyst with Leerink Partners, wrote in a note to investors.
There is plenty of competition in the space. In July 2023, Novartis spent $3.5 billion to acquire Chinook Therapeutics and its IgAN treatments zigakibart and atrasentan. While they are both further along in their clinical development, zigakibart targets only the APRIL mechanism of action, and atrasentan’s 36% reduction of proteinuria suggests it doesn’t measure up to povetacicept.
It also comes up short of Travere’s Filspari, which was approved for IgAN in 2023 and showed 50% reduction in proteinuria through 36 weeks. Meanwhile, Novartis also has an oral factor B inhibitor, Fabhalta, on the market for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and in development for IgAN, which has shown a 38% reduction in proteinuria.
Other drugs in development for IgAN are Otsuka’s sibeprenlimab and Vera’s atacicept, which is administered weekly as opposed to monthly for povetacicept.
“Despite being one to two years behind competitors, in our view, pove has the potential to be best in class given its superior APRIL/BAFF inhibition vs. other APRIL/BAFF inhibitors, which could improve clinical (effectiveness),” Bank of America Securities analyst Geoff Meacham, Ph.D., wrote in a note to clients.
Povetacicept joins two other promising kidney disease treatments in Vertex’s portfolio: inaxaplin, which is in phase 3, and VX-407, which is in early-stage testing.
“When I stand back and look at renal medicine, it’s like a renaissance in nephrology over the recent past,” Vertex CEO Reshma Kewalramani said during the Alpine buyout conference call. “I think Vertex is leading the way with these three medicines.”
4. Gilead Sciences and CymaBay Therapeutics
By Angus Liu
Deal value: $4.3 billion
Premium: 27% above prior closing price
Date announced: Feb. 12
Gilead Sciences bought Cymabay Therapeutics ahead of an FDA approval for Livdelzi (seladelpar) in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), a rare autoimmune liver disease. While inflammation is a relatively new focus at Gilead, the company is well established in liver disease thanks to its hepatitis portfolio.
Livdelzi activates a receptor called PPAR-delta. Analysts’ peak sales estimate for the drug range between $500 million and $2 billion.
When the deal was announced in February, Leerink Partners analysts called the acquisition a “logical strategic fit” for Gilead, “as the company can leverage its expertise and existing infrastructure in liver portfolio to maximize seladelpar’s value.” Gilead was already covering about 80% of the PBC prescribers before the deal, according to the company’s chief commercial officer Johanna Mercier.
Before Livdelzi, Gilead had tried developing its nonsteroidal FXR agonist cilofexor—bought from Phenex Pharmaceuticals—against PBC but failed. The California drugmaker’s broader efforts in liver disease outside the antiviral franchise have also largely been unsuccessful. The ACC inhibitor firsocostat, obtained from Nimbus Therapeutics, and the ASK1 inhibitor selonsertib have both chalked up failures in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), previously known as NASH. In the fall, Gilead also walked away from a MASH collab with South Korea’s Yuhan.
Although a rare disease, PBC is not a competition-free zone. While Intercept Pharmaceuticals’ Ocaliva is being heavily restricted in PBC in the U.S. and has been pulled off the market in EU, the FDA has also cleared Ipsen and Genfit’s PPAR agonist Iqirvo.
When detailed trial results of Iqirvo and Livdelzi were presented in 2023, Leerink Partners analysts viewed the latter drug as “the treatment of choice” in PBC. Livdelzi’s unique, statistically significant benefit in pruritus, or itchiness, and cleaner safety profile could give it an edge, the analysts said.
The size of the Cymabay deal followed a recent trend at Gilead, which is leaning toward smaller transactions after the company splashed $21 billion to acquire Immunomedics in 2020. In another inflammatory-disease-focused transaction, Gilead in 2022 spent about $400 million to acquire MiroBio and bagged early-stage agonists programs targeting BTLA and PD-1.
In late 2022, Gilead’s cell therapy unit Kite Pharma unveiled a deal to acquire Carl June-founded Tmunity Therapeutics for about $300 million in cash plus up to about $1 billion in potential milestone payments. The focus was an autologous CAR-T platform that’s designed to make CAR-T cells more durable and more effective.
Another small purchase in 2023 saw Gilead pick up XinThera for about $200 million. The two assets that Gilead was most interested in, a PARP1 candidate for cancer and an MK2 inhibitor for inflammation, were still in preclinical stages at the time of the deal.
Following the Immunomedics buy, Gilead is still looking to build out its oncology and inflammation pipeline through dealmaking, Mercier said during Baird’s Global Healthcare Conference in September.
“We’re not looking at major big deals like we’ve done in the past, like Immunomedics,” Mercier said. “But we are looking at bolt-on deals, kind of like CymaBay.”
5. Eli Lilly and Morphic Therapeutics
By Angus Liu
Deal value: $3.2 billion
Premium: 87% above 30-day volume-weighted average price
Date announced: July 8
Eli Lilly’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Morphic Therapeutic gives the Big Pharma a portfolio of oral integrin therapies led by an α4β7 integrin inhibitor coded MORF-057, which is being developed for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The drug, a potential challenger to Takeda’s antibody drug Entyvio, was on a roller coaster ride before the Lilly buyout. The phase 2a EMERALD-1 trial initially reported a clinical remission rate that suggested that MORF-057 may have similar efficacy as Entyvio in moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. But detailed data released in September 2023 sent Morphic’s stock tumbling as the endoscopic remission result failed to impress.
Another phase 2 trial in ulcerative colitis could report data in 2025, and a separate phase 2 study is testing the drug in Crohn’s disease.
Lilly and Morphic had engaged in de facto exclusive talks leading up to the final acquisition, a securities filing showed. While the two entered into a confidentiality agreement around general business development discussions in late 2020, Lilly expressed interest in a strategic transaction in April 2024, initially offering Morphic $46 per share.
Morphic later tried—but failed—to convince Lilly of a $60-per-share price or a separate contingent value right tied to the success of MORF-057. Eventually, the two shook hands on $57 a share, which was in the same ballpark of Morphic’s stock price before its crash in the fall of 2023.
“Oral therapies could open up new possibilities for earlier intervention in diseases like ulcerative colitis, and also provide the potential for combination therapy to help patients with more severe disease,” Dan Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., Lilly’s chief scientific officer and president of Lilly Immunology, said in a statement announcing the Morphic transaction.
Previously, Lilly got a preclinical oral α4β7 program in its $2.4 billion acquisition of Dice Therapeutics in 2023.
Other players in the oral α4β7 space include Ensho Therapeutics, which emerged in June 2024 with a portfolio of oral α4β7 integrin inhibitors from Eisai’s subsidiary EA Pharma. The lead candidate, NSHO-101, was expected to enter phase 2 development for ulcerative colitis in the first half of 2025.
Lilly has another IBD med, Omvoh, which is an IL-23 inhibitor that’s a direct competitor to AbbVie’s blockbuster Skyrizi. Following an initial FDA nod in ulcerative colitis in October 2023, Omvoh beat Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara in a phase 3 Crohn’s disease trial a year later.
Despite major revenue and stock price increases thanks to its GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, Lilly has been relatively disciplined in striking M&A deals. Besides Dice and Morphic, Lilly in 2023 bought its Type 1 diabetes cell therapy partner Sigilon Therapeutics in a deal potentially worth $310 million.
Another $1.9 billion deal in 2023 saw Lilly purchase fellow obesity drug developer Versanis Bio. The Indianapolis pharma also gained radiopharmaceutical capabilities through a $1.4 billion deal for Point Biopharma.
6. Merck & Co. and EyeBio
Deal value: $3 billion
Premium: N/A
Date announced: May 29
Six months after bailing on a partnership with NGM Biopharmaceuticals following disappointing trial results for a geographic atrophy (GA) treatment, Merck got back into eye disease game with a $3 billion buyout of privately held Eyebiotech.
The deal—which includes an upfront payment of $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion in potential milestones—transforms London and New York City-based EyeBio into a wholly owned subsidiary and brings Merck several eye disease candidates.
The jewel of the portfolio is potential first-in-class treatment Restoret (EYE103). The tetravalent, trispecific antibody has entered a phase 2b/3 trial for diabetic macular edema (DME). It also is in testing as a treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The injected drug, which targets the Wingless-related integration site (Wnt) signaling pathway, is designed to restore the blood-retinal barrier and reduce the vascular leakage evident in many retinal diseases.
Merck has been interested in EyeBio since its outset in 2021. Six months after the company was established, Merck’s corporate venture arm contributed to EyeBio’s $65 million series A funding round.
Instilling Merck’s faith in the company were co-founders David Guyer, M.D., and Tony Adamis, M.D. Guyer was co-founder of Iveric Bio in 2007 and served as its chairman until moving on to EyeBio. Guyer’s guidance helped pave the way for Iveric to be snapped up by Astellas in a $5.9 billion buyout in 2023. The deal brought the Japanese company GA treatment Izervay, which was off to a successful launch (PDF) in its first full year on the market.
Adamis came to EyeBio after playing a key role at Roche subsidiary Genentech in developing blockbuster AMD, DME and retinal vein occlusion treatment Vabysmo. Over his career in vision science, Adamis has developed 20 medicines in 30 indications, leading to 25 FDA approvals.
Both Guyer, who was EyeBio’s CEO, and Adamis, who was its chief scientific officer, were retained by Merck after its acquisition.
The deal helps the New Jersey company diversity its vaccine- and cancer-heavy pipeline, which is seen as critical as it faces the loss of patent protection for Keytruda. The cancer megablockbuster—which accounted for 44% of Merck’s revenue in the third quarter of 2024—is scheduled to face biosimilar competition in the U.S. in 2028.
In February 2024, CEO Rob Davis said Merck was eyeing deals with a value of up to $15 billion in its attempt to expand its portfolio. But the company’s moves in 2024 were smaller scale.
In November, Merck ponied up $588 million—and pledged $2.7 billion in potential milestones—for a cancer drug from China-based LaNova Medicines. As a bispecific antibody, the treatment is like one from Akeso and Summit that bested Keytruda in a 2024 lung cancer trial, which sent shock waves through the industry.
With its $15 billion budget, Merck will be looking for deals similar to its $11.5 billion acquisition of Acceleron Pharma in 2021, which brought potential pulmonary arterial hypertension blockbuster Winrevair, and its $10.8 billion buyout of Prometheus Biosciences in 2023, which secured bowel disease candidate PRA023.
“We're going to continue to follow the same strategy we've been looking at, which is really focusing on the science and looking at how can we best continue to drive where we see a scientific opportunity that matches our portfolio and our skill set to bring that in more on the earlier stage settings and with some mid-late but clearly, not commercialized products more to build the pipeline,” Davis said during Merck’s second-quarter conference call.
7. Roquette and International Flavors & Fragrances' pharma solutions business
Deal value: $2.85 billion
Premium: N/A
Date announced: March 19
In a curious turn of events, one of the largest biopharma buyouts of 2024 revolves around a pair of companies with as big of a presence in food and beauty as in drugs.
Back in March, New York’s International Flavors & Fragrances—which up until recently was helmed by Merck & Co. veteran Frank Clyburn—agreed to sell its pharma solutions business to French plant-based ingredients maker Roquette for $2.85 billion.
The deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2025, will see Roquette get its hands on multiple IFF units as well as the company’s specialty solutions business focused on industrial and methyl cellulosic food applications.
IFF boasts a presence in food, beverage, beauty and pharmaceutical supply chains, among others, while Roquette is focused on plant-based ingredients for the food, nutrition and health markets, as well as pharmaceutical excipients.
IFF’s pharma solutions business, for its part, primarily develops and manufacturers drug excipients, as well as cellulosics, seaweed extracts, ultrapure biopolymers and specialized synthetic polymers. In addition to those offerings, IFF’s pharma solutions business also markets products like Avicel, a binder and compression aid used in the production of drug tablets.
The arm of IFF’s business that Roquette is picking up sports a total of 10 research and development and manufacturing sites around the world and employs some 1,100 workers—though it’s not immediately clear whether the entire slate of IFF employees will be transferring over to Roquette once the deal closes.
At the time the deal was announced, IFF’s new CEO Erik Fyrwald, who took up the chief executive role from Clyburn in February, said the company would use proceeds from the transaction to help reduce its debt.
The move forms part of a broader trend in which IFF has worked to slim down its business in recent years. In mid-2021, the company inked an accord to sell its microbial control business to German specialty chemicals company Lanxess for $1.3 billion.
Then, in late 2022, the company penned a $900 million sale of its savory solutions group to food and consumer industry-focused private equity firm PAI Partners.
Conversely, Roquette has been on a campaign to expand its pharmaceutical footprint. In July 2023, the French firm said it would acquire hard capsule maker Qualicaps, which is headquartered in Nara, Japan. The deal gave Roquette access to a slew of Qualicaps manufacturing and R&D sites in countries like Japan, Spain, Romania, Canada, Brazil and the U.S.
Since the deal’s announcement, Roquette and IFF have been relatively quiet, though Roquette in late November revealed that it had completed an inaugural bond offering that it will use to refinance its acquisition of IFF Pharma Solutions.
Roquette has previously said it expects the acquisition to “rebalance” its portfolio around “two pillars of health and nutrition” by expanding its pharma product range and significantly accelerating growth.
8. Novartis and MorphoSys
Deal value: 2.7 billion euros
Premium: 94% over average one-month price before Jan. 25, 2024
Date announced: Feb. 5
Despite the excitement over MorphoSys’ myelofibrosis prospect pelabresib, it didn’t take long for Novartis’ multibillion-euro buyout of the German cancer specialist to run into trouble.
Novartis in February laid out 2.7 billion euros (around $2.9 billion) to acquire MorphoSys in a bid to beef up its prospects in oncology.
While MorphoSys once sported a single commercial asset in the lymphoma med Monjuvi, the German biotech sold the product to its longtime partner Incyte mere hours before Novartis telegraphed its buyout intentions, placing the emphasis for the deal on MorphoSys’ BET inhibitor pelabresib.
The transaction also equipped Novartis with tulmimetostat, an early-stage dual inhibitor of the EZH2/EZH1 proteins that is being tested in solid tumors and lymphomas.
Prior to the buyout, pelabresib in combination with Incyte’s Jakafi had met its primary endpoint of spleen volume reduction in a phase 3 study in myelofibrosis patients who’d never tried a JAK inhibitor.
Nevertheless, the data, which were unveiled in November 2023, were far from perfect, with MorphoSys’ drug failing on a key second measure in total symptom score reduction.
Safety signals around MorphoSys’ drug subsequently cropped up over the course of 2024, with Novartis in October telling investors it would need to assess the drug further before filing for approvals after reviewing 48-week data on pelabresib.
On a conference call, Novartis’ CEO Vas Narasimhan narrowed the issue down to concerns of malignant transformations, referring to myelofibrosis’ ability to morph into the more dangerous and aggressive cancer acute myeloid leukemia.
“We plan to follow these patients longer, look at the data over the course of the next year, also evaluate what additional studies we would need to do to mitigate both the safety risk but also create a stronger data package,” Narasimhan said.
More recently, Novartis in December said it was shuttering MorpoSys sites in Germany and the U.S. and laying off some 330 employees in a move designed to “integrated all portfolio activities into Novartis,” a company spokesperson said at the time.
Novartis made the decision "based on our evolving R&D portfolio, the focus of scientific expertise and resources on prioritized programs, and the longer follow-up time required to determine the approval pathway for pelabresib in myelofibrosis,” the spokesperson explained, stressing that it remains committed to the development of MorphoSys’ BET inhibitor.
As it turns out, Novartis had been hoping to get its hands on pelabresib itself, rather than MorpoSys overall, according to deal-related documents published in April.
Based on the filing, Novartis’ path toward its MorphoSys buy largely took shape at the BIO International Convention in June 2023, when execs from both companies met to hash out “potential strategic opportunities.”
Novartis made its interest in pelabresib increasingly clear over the following months and made its intentions more concrete after MorphoSys published top-line data from its phase 3 myelofibrosis trial in November 2023.
Thing is, MorphoSys apparently had another offer on the table and suggested that Novartis would need to “move quickly” to stay in the running for the asset, the deal documents show.
Subsequently, Novartis last January sent an initial offer to purchase all of MorphoSys’ shares for 55 euros ($58) apiece in cash. But just a few weeks later, Novartis threw a curveball when it floated the possibility of picking up the pelabresib program alone via an acquisition of MorphoSys’ Constellation Pharmaceuticals unit.
The Swiss pharma said it might be willing to pay more for pelabresib if it didn’t come enmeshed with the rest of MorphoSys.
MorphoSys didn’t bite, however, prompting Novartis to submit an updated offer of 68 euros ($75) per share for the whole company. This ended up becoming the finalized offer, though it was contingent upon MorphoSys selling off its sole marketed product Monjuvi to Incyte.
9. Lundbeck and Longboard Pharmaceuticals
Deal value: $2.5 billion
Premium: 54% above prior closing price
Date announced: Oct. 14
Lundbeck isn’t the most prolific acquirer in biopharma’s M&A scene, but the Danish drugmaker last year made a splash with its purchase of California's Longboard Therapeutics and a blockbuster epilepsy prospect.
In October, Lundbeck said it would spend $2.5 billion to purchase Longboard and its 5-HT2C receptor agonist bexicaserin. At the start of 2024, Longboard revealed an early-stage trial showed the drug more than halved the number of seizures in patients with a group of difficult epilepsy disorders compared with those on placebo. As stock markets opened on the first day of 2024, Longboard shareholders enjoyed a 200% share-price jump in the wake of the trial result.
That wasn’t the end of the wild ride, though. Longboard’s shares closed out 2023 at a price of $6.28. With the bexicaserin trial win, plus a number of subsequent triumphs for the biotech, the company’s shares stopped trading at $59.98 in late 2024. That’s good for an 855% run-up over the course of a year.
For its part, Lundbeck was specific about its intentions for bexicaserin. In the press release announcing the deal, the company said it aimed to launch the drug in the first quarter of 2028 and that it sees the drug peaking at global sales of $2 billion.
The drug “complements Lundbeck’s mid- to late-stage pipeline and diversifies” its future revenue growth, according to the release.
The Longboard buyout represents Lundbeck’s first major acquisition since 2019, when it acquired Alder BioPharmaceuticals for almost $2 billion. The deals shared similar characteristics: In each case, Lundbeck identified products it could take to market in future years to build out its revenue base. The Alder buyout brought the company the anti-CGRP antibody eptinezumab, which is now approved as migraine prevention therapy Vyepti.
For industry watchers, the Longboard deal may not have come as a complete surprise. In an interview with Fierce Pharma at the start of 2024, Lundbeck’s CEO Charl van Zyl outlined a “programmatic" and "systemic” approach to M&A to bolster the company’s long-term growth prospects.
“This transformative transaction will become a cornerstone in Lundbeck’s neuro-rare franchise, with a potential to drive growth into the next decade,” van Zyl said in the Longboard buyout announcement. “Bexicaserin addresses a critical unmet need for patients suffering from rare and severe epilepsies, for which there are very few good treatment options available.”
Besides the Longboard buyout, Lundbeck made another strategic move in 2024 with its decision to leave promotional efforts on depression drug Trintellix to partner Takeda after a 17-year collaboration. Starting in 2025, Lundbeck is only collecting U.S. royalties on the medicine, whereas previously it had more of an active hand in sharing promotion efforts, costs and revenues.
10. Ono Pharmaceutical and Deciphera Pharmaceuticals
Deal value: $2.4 billion
Premium: 75% above prior closing price
Date announced: April 29
Roughly a decade after Opdivo’s first global approval, Japan’s Ono Pharmaceutical—which had a key role in developing the oncology blockbuster—made a major M&A play in the oncology space.
In late April 2024, Ono struck a deal to purchase Massachusetts-based Deciphera Pharmaceuticals at $25.60 per share.
In making the deal, Ono got its hands on both an approved drug and a late-stage candidate that appears to be bound for an FDA nod, plus other pipeline prospects.
Back in 2020, Deciphera won an FDA nod for rare stomach cancer drug Qinlock. The kinase inhibitor, approved as a fourth-line treatment for gastrointestinal stromal tumors, generated $159 million last year.
Besides Qinlock, Ono also picked up oral tumor treatment vimseltinib, which appears to be heading toward a potential regulatory nod. In the fall of 2023, the drug succeeded in a phase 3 study in patients with tenosynovial giant cell tumors, prompting the submission of an approval filing with the FDA. In August of last year, Ono announced (PDF) that the FDA had accepted the application for the drug and granted a priority review. The agency aims to make its decision on the drug by Feb. 17, according to Ono’s press release.
Elsewhere in Deciphera’s pipeline, the company had been advancing DCC-3116, an investigational switch-control kinase inhibitor of ULK1/2 designed to inhibit autophagy, and DCC-3084, an earlier-stage pan-RAF inhibitor, before the buyout.
"We expect that this acquisition of Deciphera will not only expand ONO's target oncology portfolio, but also accelerate ONO's business development in the United States and Europe, and strengthen kinase drug discovery research,” Ono CEO Gyo Sagara said in a statement at the time of the deal.
For many, it didn’t come as a surprise to see Ono make a sizable play in the oncology field. Many market watchers recognize the company for its involvement in Opdivo, which in 2014 became the first PD-1 drug to be approved anywhere in the world. In the decade that followed, the Bristol Myers Squibb-partnered blockbuster generated many billions in sales.
Ono’s deal closed relatively quickly: In mid-June of 2024, the company said the tender offer had been completed.
Source: fiercepharma.com