Sanofi almost beats Pfizer at M&A

Anyone who's been paying attention to the pharma business this year suspects that drugmakers are on a bigger-than-usual shopping spree. Now we know just how much bigger, thanks to Life Science Analytics. Pharma M&A is up by 20 percent so far this year as drugmakers scramble to refill depleted pipelines, push into emerging markets and diversify beyond prescription drugs, all in the name of combating the ongoing loss of sales to new generic versions of blockbuster meds.

Pfizer topped the list of dealmaking drugmakers with 51 transactions as of October. As Life Science Analytics President Sarah Terry notes, that's not super-surprising; after all, Pfizer is the biggest Big Pharma on the planet. But second-place Sanofi-Aventis and third-place Novartis are just a couple of hair's-breadths away from that top slot; Sanofi racked up 50 deals, while Novartis managed 49. "Sanofi-Aventis is ... most worthy of note," Terry said in a statement. "The company rose t