The top 15 mega-deals in bio­phar­ma: Ab­b­Vie and Bris­tol-My­ers ac­qui­si­tions stir fresh de­bate over what's too big to buy

The de­bate over what’s too big to buy in biotech is back. A num­ber of top an­a­lysts went right af­ter Ab­b­Vie’s ra­tio­nale for the Al­ler­gan deal to­day, just as Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb stirred im­me­di­ate de­bate over the worth and wis­dom of ac­quir­ing Cel­gene.

To help pro­vide some added con­text to this dis­cus­sion, we asked Deal­For­ma chief Chris Doko­ma­ji­lar to look over the past decade of ma­jor M&A in bio­phar­ma to de­ci­pher the top 15 plays.

The new num­bers, un­ad­just­ed for in­fla­tion, harken back to the days of the Pfiz­er-Wyeth buy­out and Mer­ck’s de­ci­sion to ab­sorb Scher­ing-Plough — both trig­gered in 2009. The heat over those ac­qui­si­tions made the big phar­ma mega-deal high­ly un­pop­u­lar for most every­one — ex­cept Pfiz­er — as in­dus­try lead­ers swore off al­most all but the handy bolt-on ac­qui­si­tion.

Un­til re­cent­ly.

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