November round-up of pharma/biotech M&A activity

With a US election at the beginning of last month, which brought a shock result, it is hardly surprising that early November was a quiet period for mergers and acquisitions in pharma.

However, there were still some interesting deals in the month, including US drugmaker Eagle Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: EGRX)  swooping to signal its entry into the biosimilars market, Swiss pharma major Novartis (NOCN: VX) buying US firm Selexys Pharmaceuticals Corp to acquire a sickle cell disease candidate and serial dealmaker Allergan (NYSE: AGN) adding a late-stage Alzheimer's program by buying Chase Pharmaceuticals.

In terms of the most-talked about issue, it would be hard to look beyond the news that US health care giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) had approached Swiss biotech Actelion (SIX: ATLN), and the  updates on the subsequent discussions and considerations. However, this is far from being a done deal.