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Bristol/Celgene Made Perfect Sense, But Doesn’t Promise Big M&A Year, EY Says

 
• By Joseph Haas

The conditions that produced a sluggish biopharma M&A environment in 2018 persist, with bolt-on deals like Lilly/Loxo more likely than another mega-merger.

Peter Behner of EY
EY Global Life Sciences Transactions Leader Peter Behner

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s $74bn acquisition of Celgene Corp. doesn’t necessarily portend a hectic year of biopharmaceutical M&A, according to EY Global Life Sciences Transaction Leader Peter Behner, nor does Eli Lilly & Co.’s $8bn purchase of Loxo Oncology Inc. – but weighing transformational M&A versus bolt-on deals, he predicts more of the latter.

Interviewed during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference Jan. 8, where EY released its 2019 M&A Firepower Report estimating the M&A capacity of the life sciences sector, Behner pointed out that the same factors that held down biopharma M&A in 2018 still apply

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