Everyone Wants to Be a Biotech Banker Now
Big drugmakers have good reasons for pursuing deals, even if the rest of the M&A market cools.
One place where M&A is still hot.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
When snow isn’t on the radar, and then two storms hit in a row, you start to question the forecast. That’s how the market for mergers and acquisitions may feel right now.
M&A is set to slow in 2019, yet early signs are to the contrary. Two multibillion-dollar biotechnology deals have already been announced in the new year, resulting in the busiest start to global dealmaking on record. Eli Lilly & Co. agreed on Monday to buy Loxo Oncology Inc. for about $8 billion, on the heels of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s $74 billion takeover last week of Celgene Inc. In each case the transaction is the acquirer’s largest ever.