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Dealmaking Quarterly Statistics, Q1 2021

A Look At M&A And Alliance Activity Across The Biopharma, Medical Device And In Vitro Diagnostics Industries, January-March 2021

 
• By Deanna Kamienski and Maureen Riordan

During Q1, biopharma merger and acquisition value reached $34.8bn and drew in $35bn in potential deal value (PDV) from alliances. Device company M&A values reached $10.2bn, while in vitro diagnostic firms and research tools players completed M&A activity that totaled $5bn.

Qstats Image 1
• Source: Alamy

Biopharma merger and acquisition value for the first quarter of 2021 totaled $34.8bn from 39 transactions, a significant drop in both deal value and volume versus Q4’s $73.9bn from 49 deals. Note that just over half of the Q4 total was from AstraZeneca’ s definitive agreement to acquire public rare disease drug developer Alexion Pharmaceuticals for $39bn (set to close in Q3 2021); if we remove this outlier, the Q4 total dollar value is $34.9bn, more in line with the Q1 2021 aggregate. The top three transactions of Q1 were not by big pharma, but instead a variety of biopharma players (see Exhibit 1).

The largest M&A of the quarter was a definitive agreement by ICON plc (global provider of outsourced drug and device development and commercialization services) to acquire fellow public contract research...

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