While it made a sturdy effort as biopharma companies opted for licensing deals over M&As in 2022, the year did not surpass 2021 in deal values, falling about 3.5% short. Lackluster M&A values dropped to their lowest levels in five years and were down by 35.6% compared with 2021.

The $60.8 billion collected by biopharma companies throughout 2022 is a sharp drop from each of the two prior years, down by 48.6% from 2021 and 54.8% from 2020. Each were standout years by any measure and a direct result of the investment fervor for the industry brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. That exuberance diminished in the last year as investors tightened their grips due to economic uncertainties.

In the fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization is monitoring two omicron subvariants, BA.5.2 and BF.7, causing a surge of COVID-19 cases in China. It also is keeping abreast of rising XBB.1.5 cases and declining BQ.1 cases in Europe and the U.S., where hospitalizations have increased in recent weeks. Global cases in the last month are trending below the same timepoints in 2020 and 2021, and deaths are significantly down, suggesting a move toward an endemic stage.

In the wake of ongoing criticism over the U.S. FDA’s 2021 accelerated approval of Biogen Inc.’s Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, the percentage of novel drugs receiving accelerated approval last year was the lowest it’s been since 2018.

For European biotechnology, 2022 was a year of contraction. Disclosed equity investments in European firms engaged in the discovery and development of therapeutics totaled $6.782 billion, down 55% on the previous year’s record-breaking tally of $15.193 billion. Last year’s tally is the worst performance since 2017 and is well below the totals achieved during the two years immediately preceding the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered a boom in biotech investing.