Pharma M&A activity continues apace through 2006, but no mega deals

Total industry global mergers and acquisitions during 2006 reached a massive value of $3,611.0 billion, which was up 24.5% on the 2005 total of $2,900.0 billion, and that had been 38% higher than the previous year. There was also a great deal of M&A activity in the pharmaceutical sector last year, though none on the scale of the previous year (Marketletter January 2 & 9, 2006).

The total value of pharmaceutical M&As, where financial terms were provided, as shown shown in the table on pages 36-37, came to $106.32 billion.

There was a lot of activity in the German market with the largest deal there, and in the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, being Bayer AG's $19.84 billion acquisition of fellow German drugmaker Schering AG, after the latter received a hostile bid from Merck KGaA.