As the pharmaceutical sector continues to come under scrutiny for its pricing practices for providers and patients, dealmaking among drug companies continues to be intense.
There was $82 billion in pharma and life sciences deals consummated during the second quarter of this year, according to PwC, That's up 72 percent from the the value of deals consummated during the second quarter of last year and up 127 percent from the first quarter of 2016.
However, there was a decrease in deal volume. A total of 88 deals were announced during the quarter, down 19 percent from the year-ago quarter and 8 percent from the first quarter of this year.
In the pharma sector, there were 40 deals totaling $21 billion.
Among the biggest deals announced during the quarter was C.H. Boehringer Sohn's acquisition of a division of Sanofi Health for $12.6 billion. AbbVie acquired cancer drug firm Stemcentryx for $9.7 billion. Merck & Co. Inc. acquired Afferent Pharmaceuticals for $1.2 billion.
The drug industry has already come under intense scrutiny for some of its practices. They include acquiring rights to some old-line drug lines and immediately raising their retail prices. Drug supplies have also tightened, putting hospitals in some difficult spots about how drugs should be allocated to patients.
It's unknown how the deals might affect pricing of pharmaceutical products in the future, although a variety of studies have indicated that mergers among hospitals have led to increased prices for services. Somewhat ironically, another PwC report concluded that the merger trend among hospitals has yet to create an economy of scale for that particular sector.
- read the PwC report (.pdf)