Combinations Continue To Drive Immuno-Oncology Deal-Making

Immuno-oncology has the potential to radically change how cancer is treated, and some of that potential has already become a reality thanks to advances being made by the most successful immunotherapies on the market. Big pharma and mid pharma – two groups of large pharmaceutical companies with over $2 billion in revenue – are an integral part of that development and have been furthering efforts via deal-making. These peer sets signed 306 immuno-oncology deals between 2012 and 2016, according to a new report by Informa Pharma Intelligence’s Datamonitor Healthcare (DMHC), growing at a compound annual growth rate of 48%. And driving most of that deal activity is the pursuit to find novel immunotherapy combinations. More than half of the collaborations involve the testing of novel combination therapies that may address previously unresponsive patients and/or additional tumor types.

Notably, deal volume was fairly flat between 2012 and 2013, with fewer than 20 immuno-oncology alliances in those two years. The number of deals grew rapidly in 2014 and 2015,...