{"id":383610,"date":"2026-01-22T05:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T05:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/383610\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T05:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T05:36:09","slug":"ma-analysis-bolt-ons-for-jj-and-bristol-apexonco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/383610\/","title":{"rendered":"M&A analysis: bolt-ons for J&J and Bristol | ApexOnco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Optimism is returning to biotech, but there still weren\u2019t any oncology mega-deals in the fourth quarter of 2025. The biggest purchase was Johnson & Johnson\u2019s $3bn swoop for the prostate cancer therapy developer Halda Therapeutics<\/a>, according to an analysis of OncologyPipeline.<\/p>\n

The second-largest deal wasn\u2019t even, strictly speaking, in oncology \u2013 at least not yet. Bristol Myers Squibb spent $1.5bn on the in vivo Car-T player Orbital<\/a>, which has a focus on autoimmune disease; however, the target did appear at least to have ambitions in cancer before the buyout.<\/p>\n

As seen in other recent quarters, there were also a few opportunistic buys, including Day One\u2019s cut-price takeover of Mersana<\/a>. More interesting was Ipsen\u2019s \u20ac350m acquisition of ImCheck Therapeutics<\/a>, which gave it a BNT3A-targeting MAb designed to activate gammadelta T-cells.<\/p>\n

A peripheral fourth-quarter purchase saw Halozyme buy a fellow drug-delivery player, Elektrofi, for $750m up front.<\/p>\n

The fourth-quarter deals fall well short of the biggest oncology acquisitions of 2025 overall, which saw Sanofi spend $9bn on Blueprint, and Genmab shell out $8bn for Merus.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s renewed enthusiasm around M&A, with Revolution Medicines rumoured to be attracting bids of up to $30bn \u2013 although the JP Morgan healthcare conference came and went with no deal emerging.<\/p>\n

The only notable oncology purchase in 2026 so far is Amgen\u2019s move for Dark Blue Therapeutics for an undisclosed up-front fee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Halda and in vivo Car-T<\/p>\n

Halda attracted J&J\u2019s interest despite the early nature of its lead project, HLD-0915, an androgen receptor-targeting RIPTAC. The move came not long after Halda reported a 59% rate of PSA50 responses<\/a>\u00a0among 22 patients with relapsed, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer in a phase 1\/2 trial at the Triple meeting.<\/p>\n

One question is how Halda will fit into J&J\u2019s prostate cancer pipeline, which includes the anti-PSMA ADC ARX517 \u2013 itself the result of the $2bn acquisition of Ambrx in 2024 \u2013 and the in-house anti-KLK2 T-cell engager pasritamig.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in vivo Car-T saw various deals last year, including Gilead\u2019s $350m swoop for Interius<\/a>, AstraZeneca\u2019s $425m purchase of EsoBiotec and AbbVie\u2019s $2bn move for Capstan (although the last, like Orbital, was mainly focused on autoimmune disease).<\/p>\n

Another relatively large deal towards the end of last year saw Halozyme spreading its bets in drug delivery. The company has grown its market cap to over $8bn by licensing its Enhanze hyaluronidase technology to various big pharmas to facilitate subcutaneous drug development.<\/p>\n

Now it will also have Elektrofi\u2019s so-called Hypercon microparticle platform, designed to allow ultra-high concentrations of biologicals, thereby reducing injection volume. The private group already had collaborations with the likes of J&J and Lilly, and two partner programmes are set to hit the clinic this year.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notable oncology M&A in Q4 2025<\/p>\n

BuyerTargetNoteFinancialsDateOrphalanOrphelia PharmaRare neurological and oncological pediatric diseasesUndisclosed1 Dec 2025Innova TherapeuticsEnci TherapeuticsIVT-8086 (anti-SFRP2 MAb)Undisclosed25 Nov 2025Hanmi PharmaceuticalAptose BiosciencesTuspetinib (FLT3 inhibitor)C$2.41\/share*19 Nov 2025Johnson & JohnsonHalda TherapeuticsHLD-0915 (androgen receptor RIPTAC)$3.05bn up front17 Nov 2025Day OneMersana TherapeuticsEmiltatug ledadotin (B7-H4 ADC)$129m up front13 Nov 2025GalectoDamora TherapeuticsDMR-001 (anti-mutCALR MAb)Undisclosed10 Nov 2025IpsenImCheck TherapeuticsICT01 (anti-BTN3A MAb)\u20ac350m up front22 Oct 2025Bristol Myers SquibbOribtalIn vivo Car-T$1.5bn up front10 Oct 2025TransCode TherapeuticsPolynomaSeviprotimut-L (immunotherapy)All-stock deal8 Oct 2025HalozymeElektrofiDrug delivery tech$750m up front1 Oct 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Optimism is returning to biotech, but there still weren\u2019t any oncology mega-deals in the fourth quarter of 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-383610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}