In what is shaping up to be one of the most active years for biopharma M&A on record, a different-looking set of buyers is going shopping.
Mid-cap American drugmakers, family-owned pharma groups, foundation-governed European players, Japan-based conglomerates, the AI giant Anthropic and other non-traditional acquirers are taking part in the biotech M&A bonanza.
Infrequent buyers like Asahi Kasei, Servier, Otsuka, Biogen, Neurocrine Biosciences, Chiesi, UCB, Angelini Pharma, Collegium Pharmaceutical and a few other companies have taken part. They helped extend a quarters-long M&A spree that saw other relatively small players take part in 2025, such as Sobi, BioMarin, Mirum Pharmaceuticals, Ipsen and Genmab.
This bucket of companies faces the same issue as large pharma: They have revenue gaps to contend with when their current portfolio of medicines comes off patent. Adding revenue potential from external drug developers could bolster their enterprise value.
“The more peak revenue that people tangibly see — somewhere in the clinic — in your pipeline, the higher your valuation will be,” said Brian Gleason, a healthcare banker at Raymond James. If commercial biotechs don’t expand their pipelines, they “just plateau,” he said.
Companies in this cohort have also matured to the point where they might not be bought, so they need to pad their own pipelines for longevity. These companies don’t have as diversified a portfolio to rely on as big pharma companies, said Daniel Parisotto, a healthcare banker at Société Générale.
That means these companies have to be more focused in their asset searches and find opportunities that could last a long time.
“We want to invest, either acquire or develop, therapies which will become irreplaceable, therapies that become the backbone or standard of care,” said Chiesi’s global head of rare disease, Giacomo Chiesi.
Chiesi waited to see the first few months of sales of KalVista Pharmaceuticals’ hereditary angioedema medicine Ekterly before making a
$1.9 billion offer
last month.
“It’s always very difficult to handicap the commercial risk because it’s difficult to understand the level of appreciation that the patients and the medical community will have,” the Chiesi executive said.
Whether these specific companies can continue the pace is to be seen.
“It remains unclear how durable this dynamic will ultimately be amongst this phenotype of acquirers,” Kevin Eisele, a healthcare banker at William Blair, said in an email. Some of the deals might be “‘one-and-done’ in nature until acquirers have time to integrate the assets and evaluate performance,” he said.
But there are “still many other mid-cap/alternative acquirers, especially as more biotech companies are having great success with launching their own assets,” Eisele said. Gleason, similarly, noted that the amount of mid-cap drugmakers looking for deals has increased over the past decade as the biotech industry has grown.
Partially aiding the dealmaking drive is the increase in M&A financing routes over the past 10 years, Gleason said. Some investment firms “love signing up to fund acquisitions,” he said.
Biogen’s latest deal was funded by a combination of cash and “
borrowings
.” Chief Financial Officer Robin Kramer told
Endpoints News
that the famed Massachusetts biotech has “sufficient capacity to do transactions that will populate the early part of our pipeline,” following its $5.6 billion upfront acquisition of
Apellis Pharmaceuticals
. The deal, which closed Thursday, gives Biogen two commercial-stage therapies.
Eisele said some of the companies are becoming global players and are signaling their ambitions for being more than a “European partner of choice.”
Two European drugmakers, UCB and Servier, have been able to construct a couple of smaller deals in quick succession.
UCB signed two California biotech acquisitions this spring: neurology cell therapy developer
Neurona Therapeutics
and autoimmune T cell engager biotech Candid Therapeutics. The Belgian drugmaker’s 98-year legacy and “focused” R&D efforts lent confidence to Candid CEO Ken Song. “We also do believe that our programs will get the proper attention and investment,” as UCB doesn’t tend to do “portfolio prioritizations or moves that can change from year to year,” the CEO of the San Diego and Shanghai biotech
told Endpoints
at the time of the $2 billion upfront deal earlier this month.
Servier, meanwhile, bought pediatric glioma company Day One Biopharmaceuticals for $2.5 billion this spring after buying two assets last year:
Kaerus Bioscience’s
fragile X drug candidate and
BioNova Pharmaceuticals’
experimental acute leukemia treatment. Day One itself was a repeat buyer before exiting to the nonprofit-governed Servier.
“In a more competitive environment, what matters is not only price,” Deniz Razon, Servier Pharmaceuticals’ chief business officer, said in an email. “Sellers and partners want to know: Are you committed? Do you understand the science? Can you execute globally? Will you be a good long-term home for the asset?”