October marked a historic milestone for the biopharma industry, with deal values hitting $44.91 billion. It was the highest amount ever recorded by BioWorld, topping a deal value of $42.45 billion in December 2022. While the cumulative value of biopharma deals through Q3 lagged behind the previous year, October’s outstanding value has catapulted this year ahead. In the first 10 months of 2023, deal value reached $175.2 billion, compared to $148.56 billion recorded in the same period in 2022.

South Korea’s Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceuticals Corp. said that it struck a deal potentially worth $1.3 billion with Swiss pharma giant Novartis AG for its CKD-510 candidate for neurological and cardiovascular diseases, propelling its shares upward 26.11% by market closing of Nov. 6. With the “largest ever” deal in its history, shares of the Seoul-based pharmaceutical (KOSPI:185750) on the Korea Exchange rose by 26.11%, or ₩26,500, closing at ₩128,000 ($98.70).

Hitching onto the emerging drug class of degrader-antibody conjugates (DAC), U.S. pharma giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) is picking up rights to the U.S. and Korean biotech Orum Therapeutics Inc.’s blood cancer candidate, ORM-6151, in a potential $180 million deal.

Drawn to the potential for improved selectivity and safety profiles of PARP-1-specific inhibitors over their first-generation counterparts, Merck KGaA signed an exclusive, worldwide license deal with Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. worth up to €1.4 billion (US$1.5 billion) to gain access to the latter’s next-generation poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP)-1 inhibitor, HRS-1167.

Shanghai-based Henlius Biotech Inc. and India’s Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd. agreed upon a potential €185 million (US$195.38 million) licensing deal for Intas to develop and sell Henlius’ China NMPA-approved lung cancer drug, serplulimab, across Europe and India. Serplulimab (HLX-02) is a recombinant humanized PD-1 monoclonal antibody (MAb) injection that first gained approval as Hansizhuang in March 2022.

Korean bioventure GI Innovation Inc. inched closer to achieving its goal of “five tech transfer deals in five years” with another licensing deal for its allergy drug, GI-301, with Japan-based Maruho Co. Ltd. for ₩298 billion (US$220.7 million), although share prices still dropped on the news.

While biopharma dealmaking remains active, a strong third quarter (Q3) was not enough to bring it to the same level seen during each of the last three years, although values are coming close. At the same time, M&As appear to be rising above 2022, but even with the increase, they still lag behind other years. If the Pfizer Inc./Seagen Inc. merger, worth $43 billion, closes before the end of 2023, for example, M&As will still not come close to the overall value seen in 2019 and 2020.