Total biopharma financing during the fourth quarter of 2017 amounted to $14.5 billion, a strong finish to a year that benefitted from renewed investor confidence in the industry and an open IPO window. (See Exhibit 1.) Q4's aggregate represented a 16% increase over Q3's sum of $12.5 billion.
Biopharma Quarterly Deal-making Statistics, Q4 2017
A look at financing, M&A and alliance activity October–December 2017
Biopharma financing finished off 2017 strong with a total value of $14.5 billion in Q4, led again by FOPOs. CVS' massive $77 billion acquisition of Aetna resulted in an all-time quarterly high in the M&A category, and the largest alliances were dominated by the development of vaccines and antibodies.

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