M&A Trends: The Growing Indian Appetite

A recent round table on pharma industry trends has highlighted the hunger of cash-rich Indian firms for acquiring companies with niche portfolios in regulated markets including the US. Innovator companies shedding their generic units also present significant opportunities for Indian firms. Both trends are expected to build amid apparent Indian interest in the Teva-Allergan divestiture in Europe.

A recent discussion in Mumbai on trends in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector especially from the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and funding perspective highlighted the appetite of large Indian companies for snapping up firms with niche portfolios in regulated markets like the US. Private equity firms at the end of their investment cycles and heightened FDA inspection activity in India are also expected to trigger more transactions.

Rikin Sanghvi, senior vice president and head of pharma investment banking at ICICI Securities noted how large Indian players "flush...