IPOs: Just Another Facet of the M&A Auction

It's pretty much official now: filing an S-1 is just another part of an M&A auction.

BMS' acquisition of Adnexus, like Merck's recent acquisition of NovaCardia, demonstrates that Big Pharma, when nudged a bit by the prospect of a target hitting the public markets, is prepared to pounce.

We won't get into the details of the $415 million (plus earnouts) BMS/Adnexus deal right here--plenty of other blogs have covered the deal well (see the WSJ Health Blog or Pharmalot). Plus we're going to cover the Big Pharma biologics (and next-generation biologics) land grab in depth in the next issue of IN VIVO. And on top of all that, we're going to have Bristol's CSO and president of R&D Elliott Sigal, MD, PhD, up on stage at this week's Pharmaceutical Strategic Alliances shindig, and we'll surely get into the deal then.

But lets take a peak into the near future (tomorrow's PSA talk from Roger Longman) and look at both flavors of biotech exit; acquisitions and IPOs.

In 2007, M&A continues to climb in both total value and number of deals, while IPOs seem to have reversed a downward trend both in terms of valuations and pre-money step ups.

So which companies in the IPO queue are teeing up M&A exits simultaneously? Adnexus and Bristol's previously struck $240mm deal made BMS the biotech's logical acquirer--BMS' lack of a large molecule discovery engine greased the skids a bit for sure. Who else is angling for a public exit that could provide pharma with a similarly lacking discovery platform?

Maybe Archemix, the aptamer play without any significant Big Pharma ties could fill that kind of hole. And while Ablynx has yet to file for an IPO, its recent broad strategic alliance with Boehringer Ingelheim both gives it the pharmaceutical validations prerequisite for public investors and sets BI up as a logical acquirer should the biotech go that route.