Look back at news in week to Feb 2

Attracting a great deal of attention last week, was the news that Sanofi had outbid Novo Nordisk for the acquisition of Belgian biotech firm Ablynx with a 3.9 billion-euro deal, and also on the M&A front, Seattle Generics’ cheap entry into the breast cancer field with the acquisition of Cascadian Therapeutics for just  $614 million. In negative news last week, there was a complete response letter from the US Food and Drug Administration for Aradigm’s Linhaliq, and disappointing financial results from AstraZeneca, with mixed ones from Roche.

Sanofi's Ablynx buy leaves no doubt about its pipeline troubles

The current biotech cycle has flushed out several bidders desperate to acquire at all cost to regain lost ground: think AstraZeneca in 2013 or AbbVie in 2015. Today Sanofi secured its place in this club, showing how seriously its chief executive, Olivier Brandicourt, views its poor pipeline and plummeting Lantus sales, according to EP Vantage, the editorial arm of the Evaluate group.