Was 2024 a “reset” for dealmaking in pharma and biotech, as suggested by a report this week from EY? The industry kept M&A alive throughout the year but placed emphasis on “smaller, smarter deals” that tanked the average deal volume. In the face of lingering uncertainty, companies fished for greater return on investment.

“Instead of investing multi-billions to acquire de-risked, market-ready assets, companies targeted earlier-stage (pre-phase 3) assets, trying to tap innovation at an earlier point in the development cycle,” EY wrote in its report on dealmaking “firepower” in the life sciences. But 2025 could bring major deals back to the M&A playbook as companies arm themselves against incoming competition to key revenue drivers, the consulting firm noted.

This week, during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, J&J tossed one of those deals into the mix, singlehandedly upping the meeting’s M&A productivity to one of the highest overall values in years. Today, we’re journeying back in time to map the dealmaking volume during recent years at JPM and looking at how that could predict what’s to come on the road ahead.

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