June round-up of pharma and biotech M&A activity

The purchase of major pharma contract research organization Parexel was the largest deal of the month as it was taken private by Pamplona Capital Management.

There were other deals too, albeit the only other one approaching $1 billion in value being Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceutical International's (TSX: VRX) divestment of iNova Pharmaceuticals.

However, the big surprise was the collapse of the Bain/Cinven acquisition of Germany’s Stada Arzneimittel, which had looked like a ‘done deal’ but an insufficient number of Stada shareholders backed the transaction.