Largest pharmaceutical industry M&A until early 2021(in billion U.S. dollars)

 As of 2021, the largest deal in pharmaceutical industry history was Pfizer’s acquisition of Warner-Lambert for nearly 90 billion U.S. dollars in 2000. A further two deals in the rankings involve the American company Pfizer: its acquisitions of rival firms Pharmacia (2002) and Wyeth (2009).

Deals that reshaped the pharma industry 

The year 2000 was a significant one in the pharmaceutical industry. The merger of SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoWellcome was completed at the end of the year and created a pharmaceutical giant to compete with Pfizer. Rising research and development (R&D) costs were one reason for such mega-mergers – the R&D expenditure of companies based in the United States increased by approximately 11 billion U.S. dollars between 1995 and 2000. In the race to develop new drugs, companies searched for merger partners so that R&D budgets could be combined.

Pfizer believes in the power of advertising Pfizer was ranked as one of the world’s most valuable pharmaceutical brands in 2020. The company continues to invest large sums of money into advertising its products to consumers. One of the company’s best-known products is Viagra, which entered the market in 1998 and quickly became one of the most heavily advertised products in the pharmaceutical industry.