Increasingly "Go Big or Go Home" Dominates the M&A Landscape.

As we have witnessed with recent financing activity for private biopharma companies, which saw 50 financings in excess of $100 million in the first half of 2024, a similar trend is emerging in life science M&A activity, which is experiencing a significant increase in the number of transactions exceeding $1 billion.  As is noted in the illustration of deal activity from 2000 through the first half of 2024, for much of the period, deals of this size made up roughly 10% of announced transaction fairly consistently.  However, beginning in the later part of 2023, acquisitions of $1 billion dollars plus rose markedly, accounting for a of transactions announced in the most recent quarter, more than three times the annual historical total.  This trend may reflect an increased appetite for deals intended to “move the needle” more expeditiously, which may also be a key driver of the large private company financings.  Perhaps additional evidence of a philosophical embrace of the "go big or go home" mantra.​