Is biotech M&A set to surge in 2025?

Photo credits: Pawel Czerwinski
Biotech MA 2025

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Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are often thought of as being a cornerstone of the biopharma industry, with many deals leading to significant success stories. The sector struggled with a lack of M&A activity in 2024 as the aggregate value of transactions dropped dramatically compared to 2023. Because of this, last year is largely considered by experts to have been a “reset” year, in which companies chose to focus on bolt-ons and other smaller strategic plays. But there is now big hope for biotech M&A in 2025, with a resounding sense that activity will finally rise again as several important factors come into play. 

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    2024: A disappointing year for biotech M&A

    In January 2024, the biopharma industry entered the New Year with a sense of expectation after witnessing a flurry of M&A deals – six had been carried out in the previous quarter for at least $4 billion, with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS)’s $14 billion buyout of Karuna Therapeutics topping off the dealmaking in 2023. 

    Seemingly feeding into that expectation, four more acquisitions worth at least $2.5 billion followed in the first quarter of 2024, the most significant of which was Novo Nordisk’s $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent.

    Afterward, however, big-value M&A activity died a death, with dealmaking instead becoming focused on earlier-stage, longer-range innovative assets for less money as companies pivoted toward what EY described in its Firepower report: life sciences dealmaking – trends in 2025 as “smaller, smarter deals.” 

    Ultimately, according to EY, despite the number of transactions increasing by 17%, from 81 in 2023 to 95 in 2024, the total value of biopharma M&A deals fell by 51% last year. The largest deal was Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ $4.9 billion acquisition of Alpine Immune Sciences, a far cry from Pfizer’s $43 billion buyout of Seagen in 2023.

    Meanwhile, according to a JP Morgan report, in the fourth quarter of 2024, there were 18 biopharma-related M&A transactions totaling $5.9 billion, representing the lowest number of deals and total value since early 2022. 

    Stifel Investment Banking noted in its report that, more than any other industry, the biotech sector depends on a steady diet of M&A deals to bolster public stocks. However, many of the stocks that investors thought would be bought in 2024 were actually not bought. The report stated: “There were no public biotech takeouts for more than $5 billion all year. This was a definite negative because investors didn’t get the pops and they also didn’t get fresh capital to redeploy in the many new stories that hit the market in 2024.”

    Expectations for M&A in 2025: Could we see a resurgence in dealmaking?

    Fortunately, 2025 could shape up to be a lot better for biotech M&A as experts believe we could see a surge in dealmaking compared to last year.

    In a recent Labiotech article, Natalie Dolphin, managing director of Investor Relations at HLTH Communications, said that companies will further seek to diversify their portfolios, access new technologies, and expand their market reach in 2025. “Smaller biotech firms with innovative solutions may become attractive acquisition targets for larger pharmaceutical companies aiming to bolster their pipelines and maintain competitive advantage.”

    One of the key drivers of biotech M&A this year will be the looming patent cliff that awaits many large drugmakers. In its report, EY predicts that patent expirations could lead to a $300 billion loss in revenue for the biopharma industry by 2028. Many of the internal research and development (R&D) pipelines within big pharma companies are not sufficient enough to replace or make up for all the lost revenue from expiring patents, meaning M&A will become extremely important for these companies to drive growth in 2025.

    Additionally, according to EY, with 65% of big pharma revenues currently derived from dealmaking, the giants of the industry must continue to look for inorganic growth. In total, EY reports that the top 25 biopharma companies have $1.3 trillion in “firepower” reserved for M&A deals in 2025. 

    Another significant factor behind the potential surge in M&A activity in 2025 will be the unavoidable political landscape, with PwC’s M&A report predicting that falling interest rates and more post-election certainty about the macroeconomic landscape will help spur larger deals in 2025. 

    The return of Donald Trump as President of the U.S., with his appointment of so-called “less aggressive” antitrust enforcers that are unlikely to show the same hostility to M&A as the Biden administration and are likely to adopt a more traditional and business-friendly approach, has also spurred hopes among dealmakers that 2025 will be a positive year for M&A. 

    According to Reuters, healthcare dealmakers recently said that they expect a resurgence of deals exceeding $10 billion because of the Trump administration’s antitrust position. Following Trump’s election to a second term in November, deals that had been shelved due to antitrust risk, high interest rates, or the decline in share values after the COVID-19 pandemic, were getting a second look, bankers and lawyers told Reuters.

    However, it is worth noting that 14 out of the 17 bankers, lawyers, and financial advisers who spoke to Reuters cautioned that it could actually take more than a year for activity to return to its heyday of 2019 or 2021, when healthcare deals totaled half a trillion dollars, according to LSEG data. 

    As Trump is inaugurated today, the market is simply waiting to see how his administration will act toward healthcare, given his controversial picks for the top positions related to the industry.

    2025 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference: Big deals could indicate initial signs of M&A recovery 

    Although we are still only in January, it is fair to say that biotech M&A has got off to a good start in 2025, largely thanks to a few big deals made at this year’s JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. 

    At the conference, J&J struck a deal worth $14.6 billion to buy neuroscience drugmaker Intra-Cellular Therapies, GSK agreed to acquire oncology drug developer IDRx in a $1.1 billion deal, and Eli Lilly made a $2.5 billion deal to buy Scorpion Therapeutics, another oncology company. 

    J&J’s deal to acquire Intra-Cellular marked the biggest biotech buyout in more than a year, since Pfizer’s takeover of Seagan in 2023. It was also J&J’s first big biotech deal since it bought rare disease company Actelion in 2017 for $30 billion. The pharma giant is looking to resolve its upcoming patent cliff, from which it is expected to lose $17 billion in revenue in 2029 when its blockbuster antibody treatment for rare blood cancers, Darzalex, comes off patent, according to an article in the Financial Times, which cites investment bank Oppenheimer as its source. 

    It is hoped that JPM 2025 has set the tone for M&A activity in 2025, as, on the first day alone, a total of $18.5 billion of deals were announced. 

    Given this positive start to 2025, along with the various political factors that could play into the hands of dealmakers, there is certainly reason to believe that biotech M&A could see a resurgence this year after such a disappointing 2024.

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