The total value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in 2017 reached US$136 billion, according to Informa's Medtrack and Strategic Transactions, representing a 30% increase over 2016's $105 billion aggregate (Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 16, 161–162; 2017). The industries included in the value broadly cover biopharma, as well as consumer and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, drug delivery technologies, contract research and manufacturing and clinical trial services, but exclude devices, diagnostics, research tools, insurance (for example, the $77 billion merger between CVS and Aetna is excluded) and animal health.

At $30 billion, Johnson & Johnson's acquisition of Actelion Pharmaceuticals was the largest M&A deal of 2017. It boosted the large pharma company's assets in cardiology with Actelion's pulmonary arterial hypertension franchise, which includes bosentan (Tracleer) and the anticipated blockbuster follow-on product macitentan (Opsumit). Under the transaction, Actelion spun off drug discovery operations and some early-stage candidates into a separate company called Idorsia, in which Johnson & Johnson took a 16% stake, as well as an option on the phase II drug ACT132577 for resistant hypertension that it exercised in late 2017. Another notable biopharma acquisition in a breakthrough year for cell and gene therapies was Gilead Sciences' $11.9 billion takeover of Kite Pharma, which gained FDA approval last year for one of the first two chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell anticancer therapies, axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta).

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