Deal Trends in Obesity
Ongoing challenges aside, obesity has emerged as one of the most active areas for biopharma dealmaking. Evaluate’s data shows a tenfold increase in private biotech investment from 2019 to 2025, reaching nearly $1 billion in 2025 (annualized).
Strategic deals are being driven by a number of factors, including increased prevalence and the continuing battle for large pharma companies who need to fill pipelines as some of the biggest blockbuster drugs face loss of exclusivity before the end of the decade.
To work around the established challenges in the space, biopharma companies are responding with franchise strategies that include internal development and in-licensing of assets with diverse mechanisms of action and modalities.
From 2020 to 2025, alliances and funding deals each made up approximately 50% of transactions. While alliances saw the most activity in terms of volume, acquisitions commanded the highest average deal value. This reflects biopharma’s desire for full control over promising assets and the strategic importance of internalizing operations.
