🤝Several pharma companies have inked deals in the last couple weeks, including two $5 billion-plus upfront deals that were disclosed on Tuesday morning alone. Here’s what you need to know: 

Eli Lilly said it would pay $6.3 billion upfront and up to $1.5 billion in contingent value rights to acquire Centessa Pharmaceuticals and its orexin receptor 2 agonists. It’s Lilly’s third acquisition of the year, but its largest since the $8 billion takeover of Loxo Oncology in 2019. Centessa’s lead drug, called cleminorexton (ORX750), is in Phase 2a testing for narcolepsy type 1, narcolepsy type 2 and idiopathic hypersomnia.

That same day, Biogen unveiled a $5.6 billion deal to acquire Apellis Pharmaceuticals. The deal comes with two approved drugs, most notably a rare blood disorder drug called Empaveli, which was also approved last year for a rare kidney disease — and Biogen execs think this could be its next big market. 

Across March, biopharmas lined up 10 acquisitions worth up to $31.5 billion, according to an Endpoints tally. If the pace continues, 2026 could surpass 2025, which was already a standout year for M&A, Kyle LaHucik wrote in this analysis. Jon Norris, a healthcare banker at HSBC, told Endpoints that he thinks the M&A pace will remain, “though maybe not at the frenzy we saw in Q1.”

💰Blackstone this week announced it had raised $6.3 billion for its latest life sciences vehicle, Blackstone Life Sciences VI — the industry’s largest-ever private investment fund. It’s equal to more than half the value of new investment funds raised all of last year, according to a year-end report from William Blair. Blackstone has already deployed about $2 billion from the fund over the past 12 months, and could continue investing at a pace of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year, Nick Galakatos, global head of Blackstone Life Sciences, told Endpoints.

The fund lands as the biotech industry pulls out of a yearslong slump, but Blackstone is also taking a different strategy than most. Instead of high-risk, early-stage bets, Blackstone tends to back late-stage development programs. Read more from Kyle LaHucik here.

🥜The surge in food allergies transformed how many American children grow up. But a combination of better biological understanding, and a new use of an old drug, has cracked open a potentially huge market in biopharma — and effective treatments for patients. We took a comprehensive look at how Roche and Novartis’ Xolair, a 23-year-old asthma medicine, found renewed life as a blockbuster after it won expanded approval in 2024 to treat food allergies.