Four of this year’s biggest acquisitions topped 11-figure figures. One was 2025’s messiest bidding war.
After a post-pandemic correction—marked by a nosedive in dealmaking activity, a spike in bankruptcies and dried-up financing—M&A activity finally seemed to pick back up for biopharma in 2025.
The year opened with the largest deal that would come: Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion play for Intra-Cellular Therapeutics, putting the pharma in a commanding position in the neuroscience space. This deal also icked off a trend we would see throughout the year. In an industry with an underrepresented by women, many of the big ticket transactions this year invilved companies with a woman CEO.
Besides Intra-Cellular, there was plenty of other exciting activity, especially later in the year, which witnessed two big-ticket bidding wars.
One, between Novo Nordisk and Pfizer over obesity star Metsera, landed itself in this list by driving Pfizer to double its initial offer. The ordeal was also among the most dramatic public spats between two pharma powerhouses. The other bidding war was between Alkermes and Lundbeck over Avadel.
While it got messy and hectic times, the dealmaking activity last year suggests that Big Pharmas have the money to fund hefty purchases—and are willing to spend it. Indeed, as of October 2025, the industry had hit an aggregate takeover value of $70 billion, according to a report from Oppenheimer at the time. This sum already eclipsed the total M&A spend in 2024, 2022 and 2021.
Here, BioSpace looks back at the biggest acquisition deals of 2025.
J&J Strikes Year’s Largest Deal in January
Target: Intra-Cellular Therapies
Acquisition date: January 13
Final bid: $14.6 billion
2025 got off to an explosive start when J&J announced in January the acquisition of neurology specialist Intra-Cellular Therapies for an eye-watering $14.6 billion.
The deal, which formally closed in April, gave the healthcare giant Caplyta, a daily antipsychotic pill approved for the treatment of schizophrenia and depressive episodes in patients with bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. In November, the FDA approved an expansion for Caplyta as an adjunctive therapy with antidepressants for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD).
Aside from Caplyta, J&J also got Intra-Cellular’s clinical pipeline, including the mid-stage ITI-1284, a deuterated form of Caplyta being tested for generalized anxiety disorder, as well as Alzheimer’s disease agitation and psychosis.
These assets will complement J&J’s own neuro portfolio, led by the antidepressant nasal spray Spravato and the antipsychotic franchise Invega. Reacting to J&J’s takeover of Intra-Cellular, Stifel analysts wrote in a Jan. 15 note that the pharma’s $14.6-billion vote of confidence “is a much-needed win for the neuroscience space,” breathing life into a field that has notoriously been difficult to succeed in.
The deal also set the tone for women-led biotechs securing exits in the double-digit billions, with CEO Sharon Mates, who co-founded Intra-Cellular back in 2002 and served as its chair, president and CEO.
Months of Negotiations Land RNA Pipeline for Novartis
Target: Avidity Biosciences
Acquisition date: October 25
Final bid: $12 billion
Joining J&J in giving neuro a nudge is Novartis, which in October put $12 billion on the line to swallow Avidity Biosciences and its portfolio of investigational RNA therapies, landing the second spot on this list.
Novartis’ proposal wasn’t always that hefty, however. Regulatory documents released a month later showed that the pharma’s initial offer was $7.4 billion—way too low for the biotech’s CEO Sarah Boyce. Months of negotiation followed, with Novartis upping its bid to $8.5 billion then $10 billion and, lastly, to the final price of $12 billion.
Avidity’s pipeline is led by three antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs), all of which are in registrational development. These include del-zota for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), del-desiran for myotonic dystrophy type 1 and del-brax for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. AOCs consist of a monoclonal antibody to target a specific disease-related protein attached to a short string of nucleotides that produces therapeutic effects.
Leveraging this mechanism, del-zota elicited a 25% increase in dystrophin expression in DMD patients, according to a Phase I/II readout in August last year. A week before being acquired by Novartis, Avidity announced that it expects to submit a biologics license application (BLA) for del-zota in the first quarter of 2026.
Similarly, del-desiran and del-brax are moving steadily toward registration. The former is in Phase III development with first enrollment in July, while the company opened an accelerated pathway for the latter in June.
Aside from del-zota, del-desiran and del-brax, Novartis also picked up other preclinical DMD and rare neuromuscular programs from the acquisition. Avidity also has two early precision cardiology programs that will spin out into a new public company.
Merck Nabs Approved COPD Drug With $5B Potential
Target: Verona Pharma
Acquisition date: July 9
Final bid: $10 billion
Also breaking the 11-figure mark this year is Verona Pharma, which in July commanded a $10 billion buyout offer from Merck.
The centerpiece of the acquisition was Ohtuvayre, which won the FDA’s approval in June 2024 for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), opening up a new mechanism of action for the indication for the first time in more than two decades. In the first quarter of this year, before Merck’s takeover, Verona reported around 25,000 prescriptions for Ohtuvayre, bringing in $71.3 million in sales. Jefferies has previously forecasted peak annual sales for Ohtuvayre between $3 billion and $5 billion.
Regulatory documents released in August 2025 revealed that Merck was the sole bidder for Verona—despite the biotech starting its search for suitors in 2023. Still, during the duration of its courtship with Merck, which began in February, a handful of other unidentified companies approached Verona to explore the possibility of Ohtuvayre-centered agreements, though none of these worked out.
The Merck transaction officially closed in October 2025.
At the time the acquisition was announced, analysts at BMO Capital Markets said that Merck’s $10-billion bet is part of its effort to “to replace commercial revenues now,” before mega-blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda loses patent protections in 2028. Indeed, the pharma in recent years has gone on a shopping spree, buying Prometheus Biosciences for $10.8 billion in April 2023.
Pfizer Battles Novo for the Hottest Obesity Biotech
Target: Metsera
Acquisition date: November 7
Final bid: $10 billion
In November, Pfizer acquired one of the brightest rising stars in the weight-loss game with a $10 billion play for Metsera. The takeover represented Pfizer’s comeback in the obesity arena after scrapping a string of disappointing assets over the years, and the pharma had to work extra hard for its prize.
Pfizer’s first bid for Metsera was a relatively modest $4.9 billion, which the biotech accepted in September. A month later, however, Novo Nordisk filed an unsolicited rival bid of $8.5 billion to snatch Metsera out from under Pfizer. Metsera dubbed the proposal “superior” to Pfizer’s offer and set off a clock for negotiations.
Pfizer bristled at these developments and called Novo’s rival proposal “reckless and unprecedented.” Later, the pharma also claimed that Metsera’s controlling stockholders—including the investors ARCH Venture Fund and Validae Health—“conspired” with Metsera and Novo to promote “anti-competitive activities.”
Pfizer sued both Novo and Metsera to stop what it called the “tortious interference” from Novo “to suppress competition.” At one point, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, joined the fray and wrote to both Novo and Metsera, warning them that the proposed deal structure may be in violation of U.S. merger guidelines.
All the while, Novo stood by its decision to try to steal Metsera away—no matter how unpopular it was—upping the bid to $10 billion. Novo’s new CEO, Maziar Mike Doustdar, even goaded Pfizer from the White House. “Our message to Pfizer is that if they would like to buy the company, then put your hand in the pocket and bid higher,” Doustdar said during an event for a drug pricing deal with the government for its GLP-1 drugs.
Ultimately, that’s what Pfizer did. The pharma eventually matched Novo’s offer, finally convincing its rival to back down and Metsera to accept the proposal.
Sanofi Takes Over Rising Cancer Star
Target: Blueprint Medicines
Acquisition date: June 2
Final bid: $9.5 billion
Closing out this list is the mid-year merger between Sanofi and rare disease specialist Blueprint Medicines, led by CEO Kate Haviland, the third female leader on this list.
The companies in June agreed to a $9.5 billion acquisition deal, giving Sanofi the FDA-approved systemic mastocytosis drug Ayvakit and a pipeline of investigational immunology and cancer therapies. In 2024, Ayvakit made $479 million. Because of the Sanofi takeover, Blueprint hasn’t reported sales figures for Ayvakit for the latter half of the year, but the pharma in its Q3 business report credited the drug as being partly responsible for a 57.1% increase in sales.
Speaking to analysts in a call after the acquisition, Sanofi’s head of specialty care Brian Foard said that Ayvakit’s launch was “just getting started” and that the pharma sees a lot of long-term potential for the drug. Beyond Ayvakit, Sanofi also got elenestinib, a KIT blocker for systemic mastocytosis.
Blueprint’s pipeline also includes BLU-808, in early-stage development for chronic urticaria, allergic rhinoconjunctivities, allergic asthma and mast cell activation syndrome. Blueprint is also bringing to the Sanofi fold several discovery-phase assets for various cancers, including breast cancer and other solid tumors.
All told, Leerink analysts in a June 2 note estimated that Blueprint’s revenues could hit $2.1 billion by 2030—though to hit this bar, Sanofi “will need to deliver on its plans to find and treat more patients.” And, for the acquisition to pay off, “it is critical, in our view, that BPMC’s pipeline delivers blockbuster revenue over the long term,” Leerink added.
Sanofi closed the Blueprint deal in July, a month after it was announced.
