Top 5 Pharma M&A deals 2020

2020’s M&A activity hasn’t quite reached the heights of last year’s, where two pharma mega-mergers – BMS’ buyout of Celegne and AbbVie’s acquisition of Allergan – accounted for almost 40% of total M&A deal values. 

 That said, there were still some interesting moves indicating new directions of travel for big pharma players – with most deals focused on specific drugs from biotechs, particularly in cancer (though we did get rumours of an AstraZeneca-Gilead merger, which would have been the biggest pharma M&A deal of all time). 

Here we take a look at the biggest mergers and acquisitions of 2020 and what they might mean for the companies involved.

AstraZeneca & Alexion 

By far the biggest pharma deal of the year is AstraZeneca’s late-breaking offer to buy Alexion for $39 billion. 

Gilead & Immunomedics 

The AZ-Alexion deal is likely to be the only big pharma merger this year, but Gilead’s purchase of US biotech Immunomedics and its potential cancer blockbuster Trodelvy isn’t far off it in terms of value, with the deal totalling $21 billion. 

Johnson and Johnson & Momenta 

This $6.5 billion deal means that J&J has added potential inflammatory disease blockbuster nipocalimab to the pipeline at its Janssen pharmaceuticals unit. 

Gilead & Forty Seven 

Further cementing Gilead’s ambitions in cancer, this $4.9 billion deal adds an antibody targeting several blood cancers to the company’s research pipeline. 

Sanofi & Principia Biopharma 

Sanofi added a potential multiple sclerosis drug to its pipeline when it bought Principia Biopharma for up to $3.68 billion in August.

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