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...