The difficult financial landscape may have dampened biopharma M&A but biotech partnering remains robust and crucial to bring innovation to industry, say Roche and Novartis.
The last two years saw some of the lowest levels of M&A in the pharma space since the 2008 financial crash. Meanwhile, the industry has seen private funding dry up, and further problems are on the horizon following the recent Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse and the ongoing crisis at Credit Suisse.
“It’s been a torrid time for biotechs,” said Melanie Senior, healthcare writer & analyst at Nature Biotech, introducing a panel at BIO Europe Spring this morning. “When I spoke to biotechs and our investors at the beginning of last year, everyone was incredibly hopeful that robust M&A would save the day and would provide exits and money where the investors weren’t. I think it’s fair to say that didn’t happen.”
Dealmaking has picked-up somewhat so far in 2023, with Pfizer’s $43 billion planned takeover of Seagen and Sanofi’s smaller $2.9 billion acquisition of Provention Bio helping make M&A levels at already more than half that of the full year 2022.