2011 a bumper year for Pharma, Biotech and Generics M&A

Although there were few multi-billion dollar deals, 2011 turned into a bumper year for the number of merger and acquisition deals for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and generic drugmakers with a total of 129 M&A announcements recorded by The Pharma Letter, compared with 117 in 2010, which was then a record number (The Pharma Letter January 13, 2011).

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However, the mega-mergers of 2009 have again not been repeated. The largest deal of the year was an overhang from 2010, as France’s Sanofi battled for control of US biotech firm Genzyme, which it finally realized in April with an increased offer of $21.1 billion (originally $18.5 billion) plus a contingent rights agreement, largely based on the success or otherwise of the US firm’s potential multiple sclerosis drug alemtuzumab (TPLs passim).