What’s bad for pharma is good for biotech

You may not have realized this, but we are living at a time of peak dealmaking. The analysts at SVB Leerink looked at a decade of biopharma buyouts, a full $714 billion worth, and concluded that the industry has reached a 10-year zenith when it comes to acquiring things.

What’s particularly interesting is that, in parsing about 175 historic deals, the analysts spotted a trend: There’s a negative correlation between organic growth and dealmaking. That means buyouts tend to be scarce when drug companies are thriving and abundant when they’re stagnant.

Surveying the landscape of multinational drug giants, things lean more toward stagnation than growth, which suggests to SVB Leerink that the pace of buyouts is unlikely to slow down.