Following Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (BMS) announcement on 3 January 2019 that it will acquire Celgene in a cash and stock deal with an equity value of approximately $74bn,

Edit Kovalcsik, Managing Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on this significant merger:

“Amidst the inevitable transformation of the pharmaceutical industry, top drug companies are determined to stay in the spotlight and emerge as highly profitable global pharma giants. BMS and Celgene are already among the ten largest drug makers in the US; BMS being the eighth largest with an annual revenue of $20.8bn and Celgene the ninth largest, with a revenue of $13.0bn.

“As a result of the spectacular merger, BMS is likely to join the top five Pharma companies and the combined revenue will place the company behind the leading three Pharma giants: Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Merck.

“BMS is a world leader in the melanoma market and was the first to launch a targeted therapy, Yervoy (ipilimumab), for advanced melanoma. More recently, immuno-oncology (IO) drug development has been looking towards combination trials of IO-only combinations as well as combinations with targeted agents, with radiotherapy or with chemotherapy. GlobalData’s report: ‘Immuno-oncology Development Trends and Opportunities’ found that IO-only combinations commonly involve BMS’ Opdivo (nivolumab) and Yervoy.

“The BMS/Celgene unity will not only increase BMS’ leadership across its cancer, immunology and inflammation portfolio, but it will also benefit from Celgene’s rich pipeline portfolio. Celgene has a particularly large number of oncology drugs in late-stage development which include Revlimid (lenalidomide), Pomalyst (pomalidomide), Abraxane (paclitaxel), Istodax (romidepsin), Imfinzi (durvalumab), and tislelizumab.”