Akero Therapeutics, Inc.

iStock, Man As Thep Speaking on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Novo business development executive Tamara Darsow said the company is gunning for obesity and diabetes assets. Novo Nordisk’s business development team had 200 meetings at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, a staggering figure as the Danish pharma tries to get back into the game after a messy bidding war over Metsera in the fall. “[Metsera] was a company that was very interesting to us and very complimentary to what we do. Of course, we wanted it. We were sorry to see it go,” Tamara Darsow, senior vice president, global business development, told BioSpace on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Wednesday. “But it also was, from our perspective, a bit of financial discipline and there was a limit to what we were willing to pay for it.” So it’s onward and upward for Darsow and her team. Novo is also reforming its business development strategy under new CEO Mike Maziar Doustdar, who is seeking to transform the 103-year-old Danish company into a modern pharma giant. “As with any time when there’s a leadership change, there’s some strategic thinking and some changes that come,” Darsow said. “I think we have some very good clarity now on what that looks like moving forward, and so that that gives us a lot of confidence on how to execute in 2026.” Not historically known as an acquirer, Novo began to earn a new reputation last year with—of course—the Metsera battle, but also successful deals helped showcase Doustdar’s new style. The company acquired Akero Therapeutics for $5.2 billion in October, tucking in a metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) therapy to the pipeline. Acknowledging the rise of M&A for Novo, Darsow said her team is “relatively agnostic” about deal structure, noting simply that the buys made sense becuase the acquired companies fit nicely into the pipeline. The company has also signed a slew of licensing deals, including a partnership with China’s United Laboratories in March for a triple agonist of the GLP-1, GIP and glucagon receptors. The weight loss deal included $200 million upfront and up to $1.8 billion on the back end in milestones. Novo is hyperfocused on finding additional obesity and diabetes assets, Darsow said. She’s particularly excited about finding new novel mechanisms for the diseases and improving tolerability or dosing. In diabetes, she flagged insulin sensitizers and beta cell preservation as technologies she is keen to find. Semaglutide, Novo’s GLP-1, changed the way diabetes is treated for millions of people. Darsow said there’s still more to do in the weight loss space, despite a crowded market and dozens of biotechs offering options. That’s a good thing, according to Darsow. She remembers a time when there wasn’t a lot of choice for Novo. “Five years ago, if you were looking for novel obesity companies, they were few and far between. Now we see this huge expansion of interest and investments in this area,” Darsow said. “I think that is just good for the entire industry and the entire ecosystem.” Novo is the ideal partner in obesity, Darsow said, because of the “tremendous amount of expertise” it has developed with semaglutide and a pipeline of next-gen assets. Besides obesity and diabetes, Darsow said Novo is looking to pick up some rare disease assets. The company has an interest in rare blood diseases as well as diseases that are complications of obesity that could be complimentary to the existing portfolio. Akero is an example of the latter strategy. Darsow is pleased that Novo’s recent dealmaking has run the gamut from early to late stage. She also noted that the company has a scouting team in China looking at new obesity assets. While the Danish pharma’s bid for Metsera was unsuccessful, Darsow said it did show the industry that Novo is willing to fight hard for what it wants. “We need to know what we want and move with intention and expect competition,” she said.

None Following a mercurial couple of years for biopharma M&A activity, 2025 saw a marked return to form, with a bevy of looming patent expirations and a thawing of the biotech investment scene prompting drug developers of all stripes to pull out their checkbooks in 2025.Still, the scope and scale of the deals tallied in 2025—which one leader at L.E.K. Consulting’s global health practices estimated to be the “strongest M&A year since 2019”—wasn’t a sure thing for much of the first half of 2025, as the industry grappled with major policy uncertainties in the U.S.But by the back half of the year, as the biopharma realm came to grips with the new normal, a spate of deals kicked off.While none of those transactions approached the heights of historic major outlays like Takeda’s $64 billion Shire takeover, AbbVie’s $63 billion Allergan buyout or Bristol Myers Squibb’s $74 billion play for Celgene, the acceleration of mergers and acquisitions in the final months of 2025 is likely to keep pace in the new year, Bart Van de Vyer, an M&A consultant with McKinsey, told Fierce in a recent interview.Leading the pack of biopharma M&A transactions in 2025 was Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion outlay for central nervous system disease specialist Intra-Cellular Therapies. The crown jewel of that transaction was Intra-Cellular’s Caplyta, a schizophrenia and bipolar disorder drug that also won an FDA nod in the lucrative yet tough-to-crack indication of major depressive disorder in November. The drug will now complement J&J’s ketamine-based nasal spray Spravato in the field.Multiple other deals landed in the $10-billion-plus range last year, including Novartis’ move to acquire neuroscience specialist Avidity Biosciences, Pfizer’s buyout of obesity biotech Metsera and Merck & Co.’s deal for Verona Pharma and its blockbuster-to-be in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).Pfizer’s play for Metsera, which followed a clear-out of its internal obesity pipeline earlier in 2025, marked one of the year’s most attention-grabbing deals, thanks in no small part to a surprise bid for Metsera from GLP-1 heavyweight Novo Nordisk.While Novo ultimately failed to prevail in that bidding contest, another deal from the Danish Drugmaker ranked on the 2025 leaderboard, with Novo’s $5.2 billion buyout of Akero Therapeutics and its metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) candidate efruxifermin landing in the no. 8 spot on this year’s list.“With $300 [billion] in drug revenue set to lose exclusivity by 2030 and pharma companies holding up to $1.2 [trillion] in acquisition capacity, pressure to rebuild pipelines is intensifying,” Pierre Jacquet, the Boston-based Vice Chair of L.E.K. Consulting’s global healthcare practice, said in a late 2025 statement to Fierce. “Supported by significant patent-cliff risk, strong balance sheets, and improving biotech sentiment, 2026 is likely to see a major acceleration in dealmaking, including 20+ acquisitions over $1 [billion].” Aside from industry watchers at L.E.K. and McKinsey, Gabrielle Witt, an M&A Partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, also pointed to the likelihood that M&A momentum will persist in 2026.Still, mammoth deals like those for Shire, Allergan or Celgene may be off the table for the foreseeable future as drugmakers increasingly seek out selective and strategic acquisitions, especially in fields like rare disease, next-generation biologics and cancer, Impiricus’ chief strategy officer Sandy Donaldson told Fierce last year.“The pipeline gaps, the need for innovation and the more innovation around de-risked models is really kind of driving this M&A growth that we’re seeing,” he added.For comparison, in 2024, the industry charted just one acquisition above the $10 billion threshold, marked by Novo’s $16.5 billion purchase of CDMO giant Catalent. In fact, the majority of deals that ranked on Fierce’s M&A list last year came in below the $5 billion range.At the time, analysts at PwC and Leerink Partners noted that while the overall volume of M&A activity was largely healthy in 2024, total deal value was on the decline. 

iStock, Alona Horkova While Novartis secured the biggest deal of the fourth quarter, a handful of riveting tales emerged from the bottom of the M&A list, including a zombie buyout and a bidding war. And no, we’re not talking about Metsera. The biggest deal of the fourth quarter was Novartis’ $11.3 billion takeover of neuromuscular specialist Avidity Biosciences, but a handful of small, biotech-on-biotech transactions in the eight- to nine-figure range made for a spirited quarter. Besides the Novartis deal, there were seven transactions that landed in the billion-dollar range, including Merck’s $9.2 billion Cidara Therapeutics deal andNovo Nordisk’s buy of MASH-focused Akero Therapeutics for $4.9 billion. Sanofi and BioMarin also got in a few deals under the wire before Christmas. Sanofi picked up vaccine maker Dynavax in a deal valued at $2.2 billion. The biotech will contribute an approved hepatitis B vaccine called Heplisav-B and a singles vaccine candidate to the French drugmaker. Meanwhile, BioMarin has offered $4.8 billion to buy Amicus Therapeutics, gaining two approved rare disease therapies . The list comes from S&P Capital IQ’s database of deals announced in the fourth quarter. There were 20 total deals for the quarter. Pfizer’s dramatic showdown with Novo for Metsera, for a final pricetag of $9.8 billion, is not included, as the New York pharma announced its purchase of the obesity startup back in Q3. This list does contain a collection of deals between smaller companies. Alkermes, with a market cap of just $4.6 billion, bought sleep biotech Avadel for $2.1 billion, after a brief bidding war with Lundbeck. Mergers & acquisitions Avidity Played Hardball To Land Favorable Terms in $12B Novartis Deal At one point in merger negotiations with Novartis, Avidity CEO Sarah Boyce and her team walked, cutting off access to a data room and moving on to a capital raise. November 25, 2025 · 3 min read · Annalee Armstrong Read More That back and forth was perhaps inspired by the protracted Metsera deal, easily the craziest M&A action of the quarter thanks to Novo’s rival, unsolicited proposal. But Pfizer secured its prize thanks to regulatory security, and the deal closed in November. Lower down the list was Mirum Pharmaceuticals’ acquisition of rare disease biotech Bluejay Therapeutics in early December, valued at $805 million. The deal centered on brelovitug , a Phase III antibody for chronic hepatitis delta virus (HDV). An ominous deal on the list is XOMA Royalty’s offer to buy Generation Bio for $55 million. XOMA is known as a biotech cleanup crew, picking up struggling companies to break them down into pieces for remaining value. In the third quarter, XOMA picked up three struggling companies. It returned in Q4 for Generation, after a tough year that saw the bulk of the company’s staff let go in April. Mergers & acquisitions How Akero’s MASH Success Drove Roche’s $3.5B Takeout of 89bio Regulatory documents show how 89bio’s board pushed Roche hard for a deal valued at $20 per share in upfront and milestone payments. October 2, 2025 · 3 min read · Annalee Armstrong Read More Check out BioSpace ’s other quarterly roundups for 2025: M&A, IPOs Snarled by Policy Reality in Q1 as Pharmas Opt for Licensing Deals June’s Busy Buyout Binge Bolsters M&A Stats for H1 Q3 Saw Some of the Highest-Value Biopharma Acquisitions of the Year So Far .responsive-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; border: 1px solid #ededed; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-left { flex: 1; max-width: 45%; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-right { flex: 2; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } @media (max-width: 768px) { .column-left, .column-right { max-width: 100%; flex: 100%; padding: 10px 0; } } Subscribe to BioPharm Executive! Market insights, trending business and policy stories for biopharma leaders hbspt.forms.create({ region: "na1", portalId: "4413123", formId: "7c139b3c-ff0b-44e0-bffe-f449801dca59", onFormSubmitted: function($form, data) { window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; window.dataLayer.push({ 'event': 'GTMevent', 'event_name': 'newsletter_sign_up' }); } });