RE:RE:RE:PwC sees continuation of US$ 5 to 15 Billion Bio M&A Deals
Merck's (MSD) CEO Robert Davis went on record in February 2024 by saying that Merck's acquisition "sweet spot " is US$ 10+ Billion, as had been suggested as being Big Pharma's sweet spot around 12 months ago.
During JPM 2024 Davis and research chief Dean Li, M.D., Ph.D., remained consistent with previous comments that dealmaking decisions are led by the best science, not the best financial opportunity. The New Jersey pharma acquired immunology biotech Prometheus for $10.8 billion and is paying Daichii Sankyo at least $5.5 billion over two years for a batch of antibody-drug conjugates.
On April 8, 2024 - RBC Capital Markets Alex Lim and Tim Chung repeated what Big Pharma has been signaling for some time in the following podcast excerpt:
The M&A Pool Set to Accelerate Biotech Innovation - Transcript
https://www.rbccm.com/en/insights/transcripts/the-ma-pool-set-to-accelerate-biotech-innovation.page
Alex Lim
I think the theme has been over the last six months to a year, really, you know, big pharma looking for late stage commercial assets to acquire from biotech. .... [And] you're seeing a lot of pharma companies do deals around this area to try to catch up to try to go at it with different mechanisms and modalities and, and so that's exciting to see. And I think that it impacts the whole ecosystem, because they're not just looking at near term kind of revenue, but they're looking at fundamental science and how it might actually impact the broader patient treatment experience over decades,
Tim Chung
And obviously a lot of excitement in M&A coming back in a more so in the sub $10 billion valuation range takeouts and you know, with, with strong M&A, generally strong capital markets as, as the beltex (inaudible) generally strong clinical data, there's more and more interest for large pharma to take out these companies and, and what that's going to be, you know, return on capital to these investors and, and obviously, redeployment back into the space, so, you know, M&A, and capital markets all working well, together is obviously great for the biotech markets.