Life Sciences Deal-Making Gets Creative, Aims At Early Stages Amid COVID-19
By Jeff Stoll and Kristin Pothier
Life sciences companies remain unabated when it comes to creatively making deals during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among those targeting biopharma companies with early-stage assets.
In the KPMG 2021 Healthcare & Life Sciences Investment Outlook, we tallied 1,138 acquisitions, licensing, and R&D deals announced in 2020, an increase from 634 in 2019. In 2020, we saw 121 company acquisitions globally versus 79 in 2019.
The dollar value of the deals was smaller than in 2019, but the volume of deals shows that investors don’t want to miss early-stage opportunities.
Our survey of life sciences executives and investors found that 71% were interested in targeting early-stage assets, compared with 39% who favored late-stage assets with greater certainty of near-term revenue. Only 29% were interested in significantly sized acquisitions/mergers and 23% were interest