Just how big is the bio­phar­ma deal­mak­ing world? In 2019 we saw mega­bil­lions in cash change hands, and that's just the tip of the ice­berg

Back on New Year’s day at the be­gin­ning of 2019, two Chi­nese biotechs called HJB and Mab­Space Bio­sciences merged in­to one out­fit aim­ing to con­quer the world with an an­ti­body plat­form they said could cre­ate new drugs for a range of dis­eases.

You prob­a­bly nev­er heard of it, but their merg­er deal was the open­ing shot for a 365-day burst of deal­mak­ing around the biotech world. At a time un­prece­dent­ed sums are be­ing in­vest­ed in de­vel­op­ing drugs around the world, the match­mak­ing that goes on be­tween a mul­ti­tude of play­ers from Boston to Paris and Lon­don to Shang­hai has reached a fever pitch.

Chris Doko­ma­ji­lar at Deal­For­ma has made a ca­reer out of piec­ing to­geth­er a com­plete mo­sa­ic of every­thing vis­i­ble in the pub­lic do­main. And it’s ex­ten­sive.

In 2019 Doko­ma­ji­lar plumbed a mul­ti­tude of sources to track 2,303 deals — li­cens­ing pacts, op­tions, buy­outs, merg­ers, R&D al­liances, you name it. Most sur­faced briefly with­out any num­bers at­tached to the bliz­zard of re­leas­es they in­spired. One, Bris­tol-My­ers’ $74 bil­lion Cel­gene buy­out, re­shaped the top 20 list of M&A deals over the last decade.

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