The U.S. FDA approved 21 drugs in December, bringing the total for the year to 191, a 26% increase to the 151 U.S. approvals in 2022. New molecular entities (NMEs) fell from six in November to three in December, bringing the annual number of NMEs approved to 55.

December med-tech deals totaled $220 million, down 50.25% from $442.2 million raised in November. However, for the full year 2023, med-tech deal value reached $10.63 billion, the top year in BioWorld’s records going back to 2018, and up 33.1% from 2022’s $7.99 billion.

The landscape of biopharma deals and M&As has seen a transformative shift, with a year-over-year drop in transaction numbers while value has increased. Overall, biopharma deals saw an uptick in value of nearly 6%, and biopharma M&As concurrently soared 80% higher in value than the previous year.

In December, biopharma deals reached $23.56 billion, the second-highest monthly total for the year. This reflects an uptick of 25.04% compared to November’s $18.84 billion in deal value. The full year 2023’s deal value of $217.69 billion marked the highest level ever recorded by BioWorld. This was an increase of 5.58% from $206.18 billion recorded in 2022 and surpassed the previous peak, 2021’s $213.57 billion.