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Eyes On Pharma Blog 

BioPharma M&A Update

Jana Chisholm
Jan 206 min read

This week, we've had EyesOn BioPharma M&A, both looking back at 2024 and forward to 2025. We're sharing some of the year-end news that caught our eye, plus the PwC preview for 2025.


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BioPharma M&A: 2024 Review and 2025 Expectations

 

According to PwC analysts, 2025 will be a busy year for the biopharma industry even if the value and volume of M&A deals fell in 2024 compared to the previous year.

 

2024 Review

 

According to an annual PwC study released in December, the amount of M&A activity in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors in 2024 was healthy when compared with levels in previous years. Nevertheless, the overall deal value has decreased as deals have tended to be smaller. Over the past 12 months, M&A in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors has decreased by 8% compared to the previous year, while deal values have decreased by 2%.

 

This year, individual stock performance was driven by the therapeutic area, with companies in the GLP-1 domain, for instance, outperforming the sector.

 

Novo Holdings' $16.7 billion acquisition of CDMO behemoth Catalent, which was scheduled to finalize by the end of 2024, was the year's highest-value pharmaceutical transaction. Although the proposed takeover gained a vote of confidence earlier in December when the European Commission granted unconditional clearance for the pending transaction, the mammoth deal has been under intense examination from politicians and the Federal Trade Commission.


For more details, please see the links below:

 


Meanwhile, Vertex Pharmaceuticals' $4.9 billion acquisition of Alpine Immune Sciences, which gives Vertex ownership over a dual B-cell cytokine agonist that Alpine claims has best-in-class potential as a therapy for IgA nephropathy, was the biggest biotech deal of 2024.


For more details, please see the links below:

 


2025 Expectations

 

PwC recognizes the risks associated with many geopolitical variables but anticipates consistent activity for deals ranging from $5 billion to $15 billion in 2025. Some of the issues that have kept larger mergers from happening in recent years may be resolved by new leadership at the FTC and the Department of Justice. Questions concerning new tariffs, FDA regulations, and other regulatory policy measures are still forthcoming.

 

Private equity investors have also been holding onto portfolio companies longer than they typically do due to the general economic instability that has afflicted the market over the past few years. The backlog should begin to clear as investors look to exit the market next year.

 

The experts point out that many early- to mid-stage biotechs make good purchase targets for bigger companies in the biotech space. Additionally encouraging for the industry are signs of a thawing IPO market.

 

It is anticipated that biotechs in immunology and radiopharmaceuticals will enjoy robust activity. In the pharmaceutical industry, potential shifts in antitrust regulators' viewpoints can boost businesses' confidence to finalize bigger deals in order to take hold of gaps linked to exclusivity loss.


For more details, please see the links below:

 


Verdiva Bio Series A Financing

 

The obesity biotech company Verdiva Bio, focusing on GLP-1, has convinced investors to contribute $410 million towards its series A funding round.


Three candidates that have been licensed from Sciwind Biosciences in China make up their pipeline. They are led by an oral GLP-1 agonist that, according to Verdiva, will differentiate itself from the competition by providing weekly dosing, in contrast to the several daily-dosed oral options being developed by rival biopharma companies. Considering results from a Sciwid phase 1 trial, the company states its weekly option could surpass the amount of weight reduction experienced by other oral weight loss competitors. A phase 2 study of the GLP-1 agonist is planned to begin this year.

 

A once-weekly oral amylin agonist and a long-acting, subcutaneous amylin agonist are the other two products in Verdiva's pipeline. Verdiva plans to evaluate the oral amylin agonist in a tablet co-formulated with the GLP-1 agonist. They also plan to test the subcutaneous amylin agonist in conjunction with a proprietary GLP-1 peptide. 

 

The biotech does plans to spend its recent funding on its clinical goals and to acquire more assets. According to the CEO, Verdiva is not discounting the prospect of an initial public offering (IPO) in the future.


For more details, please see the links below:

 

 

Novartis / PTC Therapeutics Partnership for Huntington’s Disease

 

Novartis is helping PTC Therapeutics recover swiftly from inadequate results from another study by agreeing to pay $1 billion upfront for the global rights to the biotech's mid-phase Huntington's disease program. 

 

After the trial failed, PTC chose to halt their amyotrophic lateral sclerosis product development. When PTC announced a partnership with Novartis for its Huntington's disease medication candidate, PTC518, its stock price surged 17% to surpass $51 in premarket trading. In exchange for a worldwide license to the asset, Novartis is spending $1 billion and committed to up to $1.9 billion in development, regulatory, and commercial milestones. In addition to receiving double-digit tiered royalties on sales abroad, PTC will receive 40% of any profits or losses made in the United States.

 

Using the same splicing technology that gave rise to Roche's Evrysdi, PTC created PTC518. The chemical is intended to reduce the production of the HTT protein after it has passed through the blood-brain barrier. Huntington's disease is caused by a mutant HTT, and evidence from animals indicates that reducing the protein's levels may help patients with this uncommon condition, which causes patients to gradually lose their ability to walk, talk, swallow, or take care of themselves.

 

Although other biotech companies are attempting to cure Huntington's by focusing on HTT, PTC feels that PTC518 is unique. The company has based its argument for the oral candidate on data showing that it lowers protein levels in the peripheral and central nervous systems and uniformly lowers them in important brain regions.

 

In June, PTC released 12-month data from the medication candidate's phase 2 trial. HTT levels in blood and cerebral fluid were found to decrease in a dose-dependent manner. Patients receiving the high dose of PTC518 experienced a 1.3-point decline in motor scale scores, whereas those receiving a placebo experienced a 4.9-point decline.

 

About two years ago, Novartis halted the development of branaplam, their own HTT-lowering medication candidate, after discovering evidence that it might harm nerves other than the brain and spinal cord.


For more details, please see the links below:



AbbVie M&A

 

Nimble Therapeutics, a Roche spinout that is developing oral peptide therapies for autoimmune diseases, is being acquired by AbbVie for $200 million. 


Big Pharma will also make unspecified interim payments as part of the deal, along with a possible payout linked to an unknown development milestone that might be made to the private biotech's shareholders.

 

One of Nimble's primary assets, Madison, is a preclinical IL23R inhibitor that is being developed as a therapy for psoriasis. The candidate is also being considered as a potential therapy for inflammatory bowel disease. AbbVie will also purchase Nimble's peptide synthesis platform to pursue oral peptide treatment discovery and optimization.

 

The statement from Nimble came only two days after AbbVie successfully acquired Aliada Therapeutics and its former Johnson & Johnson Alzheimer's candidate, which aims to enhance the first generation of anti-amyloid-beta antibodies, for $1.4 billion. Earlier last year, AbbVie announced a $250 million cash acquisition of Celsius Therapeutics, focusing on inflammatory diseases.


For more details, please see the links below:

 


Sanofi/Teva IBD Studies

 

A phase 3 study for duvakitug is currently being planned by Sanofi and Teva, pending discussions with regulators. 

 

Duvakitug was effective in treating individuals with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitic disease, the two most prevalent types of IBD, in the phase 2b RELIEVE UCCD trial.

 

Specifically, in patients with ulcerative colitis, clinical remission was attained by 36.2% of those on a low dose of duvakitug and 47.8% of those on a high dose, as opposed to 20.45% of those on a placebo. The study's Crohn's disease cohort showed endoscopic responses by 26.1% of participants on a low dose and 47.8% of those on a high dose, compared to 13% of patients in the trial's control arm.

 

While other pharmaceutical giants such as Roche and Merck are experimenting with the TL1A strategy in ulcerative colitis, Sanofi and Teva claim that their trial was the first to look at the effects of the drug class in Crohn's disease using a placebo-controlled approach.


For more details, please see the links below:

 



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