Pharma and biotech M&A activity in 2010 up in numbers, but no mega deals that year

With many drug majors facing patent expiries on blockbuster drugs, the year 2010 was marked by a plethora of licensing deals and mergers and acquisitions, aimed at boosting R&D pipelines and entering niche or emerging markets, all looking to boost revenues which have also been falling because of increased drug pricing pressures around the world.

Drugs with a total sales value of $75 billion are expected to lose patent protection by 2014. 2011 alone will see generic competition for drugs with a value of over $30 billion, including Pfizer’s Lipitor (atorvastatin) - the all-time mega blockbuster which at one time had annual sales of over $16 billion, Sanofi-Aventis’ Plavix (clopidogrel), Eli Lilly’s Zyprexa (olanzapine) and Johnson & Johnson’s Levaquin (levofloxacin).

Additionally, the regulatory environment seems to be more difficult with, for example, the US Food and Drug Administration, approving just 21 news drugs in 2010, compared with 25 in 2009 and 24 in 2008, with clearance of several much anticipated novel compounds’ put off until the current year or perhaps not at all due to safety concerns.