A more than 3-to-1 majority of GEN online readers believe that M&A activity among drug developers in 2012 will surpass that of 2011. Voting 70.7% to 20.7%, with 8.6% undecided, respondents offered a sunny forecast for mergers and acquisitions among biopharmaceutical companies. While M&A activity was strong in 2011, the number of those huge blockbuster agreements seemed to be lower. Sanofi topped last year’s list of biggest M&A deals with its $20.1 billion buy of Genzyme—about half of the $41 billion that 2010’s top-spender, Novartis, paid for Alcon. The top-five list for 2011 ended with Forest Laboratories’ $1.2 billion purchase of Clinical Data, while last year the fifth place went to Daiichi Sankyo when it bought Ranbaxy for $4.6 billion.
