After a period of reduced dealmaking and increased bankruptcies following the pandemic, mergers and acquisitions in the biopharma sector rebounded in 2025. The total value of takeovers reached $70 billion by October, surpassing previous years' totals.
The largest transaction of the year was Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) $14.6 billion acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies, announced in January and completed in April. This move gave J&J access to Caplyta, an antipsychotic pill for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which later received expanded FDA approval as an adjunctive therapy for major depressive disorder. The deal also included Intra-Cellular’s clinical pipeline, such as ITI-1284 for generalized anxiety disorder and Alzheimer’s disease-related conditions. Stifel analysts noted that J&J’s investment “is a much-needed win for the neuroscience space,” providing momentum to a challenging field.
Sharon Mates, co-founder and CEO of Intra-Cellular Therapies, led one of several women-fronted companies involved in significant deals this year.
Novartis made headlines with its $12 billion acquisition of Avidity Biosciences in October after months of negotiations that saw initial offers rise from $7.4 billion to the final price. Avidity’s main assets include three antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates—del-zota for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), del-desiran for myotonic dystrophy type 1, and del-brax for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy—all advancing toward regulatory submissions or registration trials. Del-zota showed promising results with a 25% increase in dystrophin expression during Phase I/II testing.
Merck entered into a $10 billion agreement to acquire Verona Pharma in July. Verona’s Ohtuvayre was approved by the FDA in June 2024 as a treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Before Merck's purchase, Ohtuvayre generated over 25,000 prescriptions and sales exceeding $71 million in early 2025; peak annual sales are projected between $3 billion and $5 billion. Analysts from BMO Capital Markets described Merck’s strategy as part of efforts to offset future revenue losses when Keytruda faces patent expiration.
A high-profile bidding war occurred between Pfizer and Novo Nordisk over Metsera, an obesity-focused biotech company. Pfizer initially offered $4.9 billion but raised its bid to match Novo Nordisk's unsolicited offer at $10 billion after intense competition involving legal disputes and regulatory scrutiny from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission regarding potential antitrust concerns. Novo Nordisk CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar commented publicly: “Our message to Pfizer is that if they would like to buy the company, then put your hand in the pocket and bid higher.”
Sanofi completed its acquisition of Blueprint Medicines for $9.5 billion in July after reaching an agreement a month earlier with CEO Kate Haviland at Blueprint leading negotiations on behalf of another woman-led firm on this list. The acquisition brought Sanofi Ayvakit—a systemic mastocytosis drug with nearly half-a-billion dollars in sales prior to the takeover—and investigational therapies including elenestinib and BLU-808 targeting various immunological disorders and cancers.
Leerink analysts estimated that Blueprint could generate up to $2.1 billion annually by 2030 if Sanofi can expand patient reach: “It is critical, in our view, that BPMC’s pipeline delivers blockbuster revenue over the long term,” they wrote.
These five transactions reflect both renewed financial confidence among large pharmaceutical companies and increased prominence of women executives within leading biotech firms.
