What a Month

Five acquisitions in March. Five. Over $23B in deal value.

RAPT Therapeutics (RAPT) -- GSK -- $1.7B $58.00 per share. GSK closed this one in early March. CCR4 antagonist platform for inflammatory and immunological diseases, including food allergy and chronic spontaneous urticaria.

Day One Biopharmaceuticals (DAWN) -- Servier -- $2.5B $21.50 per share. Servier took this off the board on March 9th. Ojemda (tovorafenib) for genetically defined cancers plus two early-stage ADC candidates. Stock jumped 66% on the announcement. Miami Tier 1 name.

Terns Pharmaceuticals (TERN) -- Merck -- $6.7B FXR agonist, VAP-1 inhibitor, and THR-beta agonist pipeline. Merck paid up for a differentiated metabolic platform. Stock went from a 52-week low of $1.87 to $52.93. The law firms are already circling on deal adequacy, which tells you this could have gone higher. Miami Tier 1 name.

Centessa Pharmaceuticals (CNTA) -- Eli Lilly -- $6.3B $38.00 cash plus up to $9.00 in CVR for a total potential of $47.00 per share. Orexin-2 receptor agonist for narcolepsy and sleep-wake disorders. Lilly's fourth deal this quarter. They also closed Ventyx, cleared Innovent through FTC, and announced the Insilico AI collaboration. Miami Tier 3 name.

Apellis Pharmaceuticals (APLS) -- Biogen -- $5.6B $41.00 per share, straight cash. Complement pathway platform with two marketed drugs. Syfovre for geographic atrophy and Empaveli for PNH and C3G. Biogen expanding beyond neuro into immunology, nephrology, and rare disease in one move.

Also worth noting. Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (AUPH) announced it's acquiring Kezar Life Sciences (KZR) for $6.955 per share cash plus a CVR. Different dynamic here. This isn't big pharma buying a target. This is a commercial-stage biotech using its Lupkynis cash flow to bolt on Kezar's autoimmunity pipeline. Aurinia itself has been the subject of activist pressure and a C-suite shakeup this month. The new management team is making moves fast.

Three of the five takeouts were on the Miami Health Week master list. TERN and DAWN from Tier 1. CNTA from Tier 3. The list was built to find acquisition targets and it's doing exactly that.

Here's what's driving this pace. Big pharma is staring at patent cliffs across oncology, immunology, and metabolic. They have the cash. They need the pipelines. And biotech has been trading at depressed levels, which makes every name with clean data and a differentiated platform a bargain relative to building it internally. The math is simple. Buy at a 30-50% premium to a beaten down stock and you're still paying less than it would cost to run the trials yourself.

The setup hasn't changed. If anything it's accelerating. Lilly alone did four deals this quarter. Merck is buying. Biogen is buying. GSK is buying. Servier is buying. The bid is real and it's broad.

We're watching the rest of the Miami list closely. Several names still on it fit the same profile. Phase 2/3 data in hand, differentiated mechanism, and sitting in a therapeutic area where big pharma is actively consolidating.

More to come.