At this point in a new year, many of us would be returning from a grueling schedule of meetings at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. Instead, this year, the fiber optic networks have been burning red hot as we’ve replaced bumping into each other on the hills of San Francisco with Zoom calls. Although media attention on the annual industry gathering has been more subdued than in typical years, the sentiment from clients is that schedules are packed with investor and partnering meetings and the world has adapted, just like it did throughout 2020.
At Consilium, COVID-19 still dominates the agenda for our clients. The ability of the sector to respond to the crisis has been breathtaking and it is has proven itself to be central to global attempts to get us back to normality. Investors and most governments are committed to recognising where support is needed to develop products and their commitment is not diminishing.
The appetite for healthcare innovation outside of COVID-19 is not abating. Proven by the active M&A market with three of our clients being acquired in the past few weeks: in late December 2020, we saw the agreed takeover of Horizon Discovery by Perkin Elmer for $383 million complete . In January Arvelle Therapeutics was acquired by Angelini Pharma for a total aggregate valuation of up to $960 million and Kymab was acquired by Sanofi for up to $1.45 billion with $1.1bn of that being up front – that’s the largest ever UK acquisition of a private healthcare company.
Behind the screens of Consilium, we have also seen notable changes. 2021 started with thepromotion of Matthew Neal to Partner. This first internal promotion to Partner reflects our growth and maturation as a business as well as demonstrating our commitment to professional development and the recognition of talent. Alongside Matthew’s promotion,Priscila Radu, has been promoted to Associate and this followed a whole series of hires and promotions in 2020. To further support our growing business, we have also appointed two new Senior Associate Partners; we welcome Allison Connolly from Bloomberg and welcome back on old friend, Jessica Hodgson.
As we are not able to meet in person during these times, we have launched our new blog page, Consilium Conscience to update you on what’s happening in the healthcare sector, the capital markets, as well as at Consilium. As part of this, we have also launched a vlog and there will be a lot more digital content coming your way over the coming weeks and months.
Thank you to all our clients and collaborators for your continued support and, most importantly, to the Consilium team who continue to work tirelessly, keeping a sense of humour and positivity in these challenging times. We wish all our stakeholders a safe and successful 2021.
