The average return for the 54 drug developers that went public in the US during first three quarters of 2018 was 13.6% as of Oct. 1 versus 16.9% as of Aug. 31 for the 47 biopharma firms that launched IPOs during the first eight months of this year. September had seven new offerings after just two in August.

Biopharma financing finished off 2017 strong with a total value of $14.5 billion in Q4, led again by FOPOs. CVS' massive $77 billion acquisition of Aetna resulted in an all-time quarterly high in the M&A category, and the largest alliances were dominated by the development of vaccines and antibodies.

The Swiss giant's acquisition of Ignyta to get hold of the latter's closely-watched NSCLC drug entrectinib will potentially trigger an intriguing fight for market share in the near future with Loxo Oncology and Bayer's larotrectinib.

Winter is coming, yet China’s financial market is still hot for healthcare companies looking at a prosperous period of investment before the year ends. Capital investments from Chinese investors dramatically increased in November, particularly in the precision medicines segment. Although Chinese Creat Group’s expected record-breaking outbound pharmaceutical acquisition deal worth $1.5bn failed to gain US approval, cross-border M&A remained active.