Life Sciences Antitrust Quarterly Update Q3 2026

Building on the momentum from the first half of the year, dealmaking in the life sciences space remained robust in the third quarter of 2026.¹ As before, a wide range of buyers — from Big Pharma to small and midsize companies — continued to use strategic M&A to build scale and add pipeline and commercial assets. These same buyers, particularly the largest pharma players, increasingly explored collaborations, licenses, and royalty transactions to access new technologies and fund development. M&A in adjacent industries such as medical devices also remained strong, including Boston Scientific’s proposed acquisition of Penumbra.

The current antitrust environment continues to support this robust dealmaking, even as the agencies have shown the willingness to investigate and challenge transactions that present a clear horizontal overlap or a credible risk to future competition.