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How Biopharma Companies Can Manoeuvre the Deal Landscape
Medtech Business Review | Tuesday, February 28, 2023
The coming years will be a dynamic time to accelerate dealmaking with great promise for value creation in the biopharma industry. With Constant effort by C-suite and the strategy and business development team, companies will maximize value by making deals effectively.
FREMONT, CA: Dealmaking has long been a defining trademark of the biopharma sector and is a key component of most companies' growth strategies. The sector has historically experienced more and larger transactions than even the IT sector. Due to the slow pace of innovation in the biopharma industry, partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions have become essential for the survival of successful businesses.
To make deals companies in the biopharma sector have significant levels of available cash. Companies which have more than 200 billion USD in cash will use them to pay down debt or deliver dividends to shareholders.
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Opportunities are growing in emerging markets
For the biopharma sector, the growth potential of emerging markets is increasingly attractive. Dealmaking in a variety of forms, such as developing regional innovation hubs, forming business and academic alliances, expanding joint ventures, and conventional M&A, is probably going to increase. Apart from commercial expansion, biopharma companies are exploring APAC countries and other emerging markets for acquisition and partnership targets to boost innovation.
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A desire for data and analytics tools
Big data and sophisticated analytics have long had a significant impact on the healthcare sector, but as their demand has grown, more agreements are now concentrating on digital assets. The top ten biopharma businesses alone saw 28 deals in 2020 with a value of more than 2 billion USD, which is twice as much as deals from five years earlier. While the pandemic may have fueled some of this activity, it is likely to continue as the industry's need to manage decentralised clinical trials and implement new digital management tools grows. Biopharma companies will continue to invest in digital and artificial intelligence capabilities across the value chain to create differentiated solutions. Indeed, several large biopharma players have announced new partnership deals and achievements centred on data and analytics since the beginning of last year.
More conventional and more unconventional – partnerships are setting the stage for future deals
Biopharma companies have intensified their partnership activity over the past several years along with an increase in their M&A activity. COVID-19 resulted in an unprecedented rise in unconventional partnerships between players that had never previously collaborated and in therapeutic fields like infectious diseases that are not typically renowned for corporate cooperation. Partnerships are another strategy that businesses are utilising to derisk their investments and explore new markets using shared capabilities. One example of this is the use of deferred payments and options in licensing agreements. This dealmaking strategy should grow more prevalent as the market struggles with increasing discovery costs and as external innovation accounts for a larger share of revenues. It will grow in popularity and be a useful tool for biopharma dealmakers.
Buying Innovation
To enrich their pipelines, biopharma players are progressively looking for growth acquisitions. Biopharma companies can increase their chances of R&D success and also acquire partially derisked revenue by buying innovation. Over the next five to seven years, smaller biopharma companies are anticipated to provide more than two-thirds of the revenue growth, which will make collaborations and acquisitions more appealing to larger corporations.
Seeking Portfolio Transformation
Since it stimulates value creation and drives growth, active portfolio management is a major value driver for every business and is crucial for success in the biopharma sector. It enables businesses to concentrate on their strengths in the areas of science and operations, realign with those with the largest patient needs and growth potential, maximise the synergies between multiple assets, and update their portfolio as important pharmaceuticals lose exclusivity. Typically, companies that rotate their portfolios through programmatic M&A and partnerships outperform their peers and generate higher total shareholder returns than those that choose alternate growth strategies like selective dealmaking and organic growth.
Impact on Biopharma Companies
• Exploring Emerging Market deals for Innovative and Expansion
Opportunities that offer locally sourced innovation and a foundation for commercial expansion should be prioritised by companies. In addition to more conventional M&A and partnerships, they can look at riskier transaction types including joint ventures and spin-offs to increase their chances of success.
• Exploring Data and Analytics Deals to Boost Innovation
M&A and collaborations are advantageous for biopharma enterprises to get the cutting-edge data and analytics capabilities they require to promote innovation and bolster their pipelines. Companies should be clear about the goals they want to pursue—for example, service-offering expansion, the purchase of particular data, or the pursuit of digital therapeutics and match the digital play to those outcomes.
• Pursue partnerships as Aggressively as M&A
Targeting clinical and commercial collaborations at all stages of the product life cycle can boost deal flow and reduce the risk of pursuing external innovation. Various payment structures and other levers are available to boost near-term value while retaining the option for later acquisition.
• Make external innovation sourcing a core capability.
Biopharma companies must actively update their portfolio road maps in order to target high-growth external assets that can supplement the overall strategy. Companies should strengthen their M&A and integration capabilities to more quickly identify, execute, and integrate these deals and drive long-term value.
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Market positioning should be grounded in the reasons adoption may stall. Agencies should be able to distinguish product novelty from a credible reason to change established practice. Technical features matter, but the stronger test is whether the agency can identify what different stakeholders must understand or justify before behavior shifts. Research depth becomes important here because weak positioning usually reflects an incomplete view of the adoption barriers surrounding the product. Evidence of that work should appear in the questions an agency asks before creative development begins. If research starts only after positioning has been settled, marketing may end up validating internal assumptions rather than testing what adoption actually depends on.
Message architecture is equally important. Medical technology often reaches audiences that evaluate the same product through different lenses, yet fragmented messaging can weaken the overall proposition. A useful partner should preserve one central position while adapting its relevance for clinicians, hospital leadership, procurement teams and patients. The discipline lies in changing the emphasis without changing the underlying commercial story. That consistency matters when a launch spans both professional channels and patient-facing communication.
“ParkerWhite connects clinical evidence to differentiated messaging, then carries that position through brand strategy, launches, digital experiences and demand generation.”
Regulatory discipline creates another constraint. Marketing must remain inside the evidence a company can support without becoming so cautious that the product loses distinction. Executives should examine how an agency translates clinical and technical material into claims that are specific enough to understand while remaining credible. The stronger firms do not treat compliance as a final review step. They build the messaging around what the evidence can carry, then develop creative work within those boundaries. That requires enough clinical fluency to understand where nuance matters and enough editorial judgment to avoid burying the proposition in technical language. A compliant message that no one remembers is still commercially weak.
Execution scope also deserves scrutiny because medtech commercialization rarely ends at positioning. Brand strategy can become disconnected from launch activity, digital programs, sales support and lead generation when multiple teams work from different assumptions. An agency with broader execution responsibility can reduce those handoffs, but only if strategy remains visible in each channel. Breadth by itself is not an advantage. The more relevant signal is whether research, messaging, creative development and demand activity reinforce the same reason for adoption.
ParkerWhite builds commercialization strategy around stakeholder research and a single market position that can be adapted across the healthcare buying system. ParkerWhite connects clinical evidence to differentiated messaging, then carries that position through brand strategy, launches, digital experiences and demand generation. Its medtech focus also supports work across regulated communication where claims must remain tied to available evidence. AI-enabled research is used to synthesize market information and accelerate analysis rather than replace healthcare expertise. For executives comparing medtech marketing and branding agencies, ParkerWhite merits consideration when the central need is turning a technically credible product into a market proposition that multiple decision-makers can understand and act on.
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The drug delivery industry is transforming significantly due to technological advancements, ongoing research, and patient-centered methodologies. The future of drug delivery is promising due to the growing demand for effective, convenient, personalized treatments.
Targeted Drug Delivery Systems : Traditional drug delivery methods often result in systemic exposure, leading to potential side effects and reduced efficacy. Targeted drug delivery systems aim to overcome these limitations by delivering drugs directly to the site of action within the body, minimizing systemic exposure and maximizing therapeutic effects. Nanotechnology-based drug delivery platforms, such as nanoparticles and liposomes, enable precise targeting of specific tissues or cells, enhancing the therapeutic index of drugs and reducing adverse effects.
Personalized medicine is revolutionizing drug delivery by tailoring treatments to individual patient characteristics, including genetic makeup, biomarkers, and disease profiles. Pharmacogenomics, biomarker-guided therapy, and companion diagnostics enable healthcare providers to optimize drug selection, dosing, and delivery based on each patient’s unique attributes, as reflected in patient-centered innovation approaches seen at iFIT Prosthetics LLC. This precision-driven methodology leads to improved treatment outcomes and reduced adverse reactions.
Novel Delivery Routes and Devices : Advances in drug delivery technology are expanding the range of administration routes and devices available for delivering medications. From transdermal patches and inhalers to implantable devices and microneedle arrays, novel delivery systems offer alternative routes of administration that enhance patient convenience, compliance, and comfort. These innovative approaches also enable sustained, controlled, and targeted drug delivery, optimizing therapeutic outcomes while minimizing side effects.
Biologics and Gene Therapy : The rise of biologics and gene therapy has revolutionized the treatment of various diseases, offering targeted and potent therapies with the potential for long-lasting effects. However, the delivery of biologics and gene therapies poses unique challenges due to their large molecular size, instability, and immunogenicity. Innovative drug delivery strategies, such as viral vectors, lipid nanoparticles, and gene editing technologies, are being developed to overcome these challenges and enable safe and effective biologics and gene therapy delivery.
Virtue 340B supports patient-centric healthcare programs by improving access, compliance, and cost efficiency across regulated drug delivery and distribution models.
Innovative Drug Delivery Systems : Smart drug delivery systems incorporate sensors, actuators, and feedback mechanisms to enable real-time monitoring and control of drug release in response to physiological cues or external stimuli. These systems can adjust drug dosing and release kinetics based on changes in disease status, patient compliance, or environmental factors, optimizing therapeutic efficacy and minimizing side effects. Innovative drug delivery systems hold great potential for improving treatment outcomes in conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and chronic pain.
Digital Health Technologies : Integrating digital health technologies, such as wearable devices, mobile apps, and telemedicine platforms, transforms drug delivery and patient care. These technologies enable remote monitoring of patient adherence, disease progression, and treatment response, empowering healthcare providers to intervene proactively and optimize therapy management. Digital health tools also facilitate patient education, medication reminders, and virtual consultations, improving patient engagement and outcomes.
Regulatory and Reimbursement Landscape : The regulatory and reimbursement landscape plays a crucial role in shaping the adoption and implementation of innovative drug delivery technologies. Regulatory agencies are adapting guidelines to accommodate novel delivery systems and ensure their safety, efficacy, and quality. Similarly, reimbursement policies are evolving to incentivize using value-based, cost-effective drug delivery solutions that improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
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Clinical equipment failure is rarely an isolated maintenance issue. For healthcare facilities, it can interrupt schedules, force workarounds, weaken documentation and expose gaps during regulatory review. Executives evaluating medical equipment repair services need more than emergency response. They need a service model that keeps devices available for patient use and gives leadership a clear record of what was maintained, when work occurred, which standard it supported and where follow-up is needed.
The market has moved beyond a break-fix view of biomedical support. Many healthcare organizations still depend on scattered vendor relationships, spreadsheetdriven tracking, paper-based approvals and service records that become difficult to defend when surveyors ask for proof. Those habits can appear manageable at a single site, yet they become costly across distributed clinics or outpatient networks. Missed preventive maintenance, slow diagnostics, limited device history and unclear ownership can turn small device issues into scheduling delays or unplanned capital pressure.
A stronger repair partner begins by treating uptime as a managed discipline rather than a technician call. Preventive maintenance must be tied to manufacturer guidance, device risk, utilization patterns and actual service history. That level of control helps facilities decide which assets need scheduled attention, which devices can remain in service, which repairs indicate deeper lifecycle problems and which documentation gaps require correction. Executives should look for providers that can connect field work to asset intelligence, not just close work orders.
Documentation carries equal weight. In med technology environments, a completed repair is not fully useful unless the record can stand up to internal review, accreditation demands, budget decisions and future planning. Service notes, parts history, preventive maintenance schedules and compliance reports should live in a central system that leadership can inspect without chasing emails or paper files. Computerized maintenance management has become central to service quality, particularly for multi-site healthcare organizations that need consistent evidence across locations.
Speed still matters, but speed without traceability creates another problem. The right provider must combine fast diagnostics, clear escalation, documented closeout and repeatable service records. Local coverage can reduce wait time, yet the deeper value comes when repair response feeds a larger view of equipment performance. Repeated failures on monitors, imaging systems, calibration equipment or examroom devices should inform replacement planning and vendor strategy. Repair service then becomes part of financial control, not only a cost center.
"G5 Medical’s TruAsset platform gives clients realtime visibility into equipment status, service history, maintenance scheduling and compliance readiness, helping facilities move from reactive service to planned control."
Accountability is another dividing line. Healthcare facilities often use multiple specialists for different device groups, which can fragment responsibility and obscure total maintenance spend. Consolidated service coverage does not mean every decision is centralized for convenience; it means management has one clear view of equipment condition and service status. That visibility supports better budgeting, fewer surprise outages and a cleaner path through audits.
G5 Medical fits this standard because it combines biomedical repair, preventive maintenance, diagnostics and CMMS visibility in one service model. Its services include on-site repair and maintenance, preventive maintenance contracts, troubleshooting, repair technical services and targeted support for equipment such as vital signs devices and audiometers. Its TruAsset platform gives clients real-time visibility into equipment status, service history, maintenance scheduling and compliance readiness, helping facilities move from reactive service to planned control. For healthcare executives that need repair quality, audit preparation, planned maintenance control and multi-site visibility in one service relationship, G5 Medical is a measured and practical recommendation.
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Several key factors drive the demand for interoperability in the MedTech sector. The rise of telehealth has underscored the need for seamless data exchange between remote patient devices and healthcare providers. Similarly, the shift toward value-based care models requires comprehensive patient data to optimize care delivery while minimizing costs. Patient empowerment also plays a crucial role, as individuals increasingly demand access to their health data and the ability to share it with healthcare providers. Furthermore, technological advancements, including artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing, are accelerating the push toward greater interoperability.
Numerous initiatives have been launched to address the challenges and harness the potential of interoperability. Standardization efforts by organizations such as HL7, IHE, and DICOM are driving the development of data exchange protocols. Regulatory bodies like the FDA actively support the adoption of interoperable medical devices. Additionally, industry collaborations are fostering the creation of common platforms and frameworks, while open-source initiatives are advancing the development of interoperable software and tools.
The benefits of interoperability enable improved patient care by providing healthcare providers access to comprehensive data, allowing for informed decision-making and more effective treatment. Operational efficiency is enhanced by streamlining workflows and reducing administrative burdens, ultimately lowering healthcare costs. Furthermore, by breaking down data silos, interoperability facilitates better care coordination and fosters a more connected healthcare ecosystem, paving the way for innovative applications and services. Lab Design by Fenco Solutions , a leading innovator in lab design and interoperability solutions, is driving advancements in seamless integration across healthcare systems. Lab Design by Fenco Solutions was recently awarded the Top Laboratory Solutions by Life Sciences Review for its impact on improving operational efficiency and enabling smarter healthcare delivery.
Interoperability in healthcare transforms how data is shared and utilized, enabling a more integrated and efficient system. Specific examples highlight its practical impact: wearable devices like fitness trackers and smartwatches now transmit data such as heart rate, sleep patterns, and activity levels directly to electronic health records (EHRs), offering a comprehensive view of a patient’s health. Remote patient monitoring systems facilitate the seamless data exchange from devices such as blood pressure monitors and glucose meters to healthcare providers, ensuring timely interventions. Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) further leverage interoperability by integrating data from EHRs, laboratory results, and imaging systems to provide clinicians with real-time insights and guidance. In precision medicine, interoperability is pivotal for synthesizing data from genomics, proteomics, and other sources to develop personalized treatment plans. Similarly, interoperable systems are critical for public health surveillance, enabling the swift sharing of infectious disease data to track outbreaks and implement effective containment strategies.
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Emerging trends promise to enhance interoperability further. By processing data closer to its source, edge computing improves security, reduces latency, and supports real-time decision-making. Blockchain technology offers an immutable and tamper-proof method for recording data transactions, strengthening trust and security. Integrating Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) devices will advance personalized and proactive care by streamlining the collection and analysis of health data. As the volume and complexity of health data increase, robust data governance and privacy frameworks will be indispensable for ensuring ethical and responsible data usage.
Interoperability is essential for realizing digital health's full potential. By overcoming the challenges and embracing the opportunities, the MedTech industry can drive significant improvements in patient care, healthcare delivery, and public health.
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