Top Big Pharmas Have $1.2T in Stretch M&A Firepower Available

 

The two most historically deal-conservative Big Pharmas have the most money to play with for a major M&A transaction, according to a recent Stifel analysis.

Who has the most cash to spend on M&A? According to a new analysis from Stifel, it’s Johnson & Johnson and Roche, each with $119 billion in “stretch firepower” that could be deployed on buying new companies or assets.

Stifel’s analysis of the top 18 pharmas is calculated based on EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) and factors in net debt that could be taken on. Stifel defines “stretch firepower” and “comfortable firepower” based on calculations of EBITDA and net debt ratios. This hypothetical cash could then be used to fund an acquisition.

For comfortable firepower, Novo Nordisk tops the list with $63 billion. The Danish pharma’s stretch goal would be $113 billion. J&J has $59 billion in comfortable firepower while Roche has $60 billion.

Stifel notes that some companies like AstraZeneca and Takeda have in the past pushed their stretch firepower, willing to go well beyond “comfort” levels as calculated in the analysis. J&J and Roche, meanwhile, have historically been more conservative and “reluctant to use obvious balance sheet capacity in order to be fully prepared for industry rainy days,” according to the report.

So J&J is unlikely to actually spend $119 billion on a deal, or combination of deals. But Stifel’s analysis gives a sense of scale for the M&A possibilities in the industry right now. The 18 pharmas have a total of $1.2 trillion in stretch firepower and $500 billion of comfortable firepower between them, according to Stifel. The total firepower has risen since Stifel last did this analysis in 2020 and 2023.

Notably, Amgen has $0 available in comfortable firepower but could muster up $33 billion for a stretch.

Below, BioSpace examines the M&A outlook for the top five companies on Stifel’s list.

J&J

Comfortable: $59 billion
Stretch: $119 billion

J&J CEO Joaquin Duato put a damper on the prospects for a big M&A play from the healthcare giant at Morgan Stanley’s Global Healthcare Conference on September 10.

“Unlike other companies, we don’t need to do large M&A in pharma because we are delivering the growth,” Duato said. Referring to John Reed, J&J’s executive VP of Innovative Medicine and R&D,Duato continued, “He’s always asking for more money in order to develop more medicines.”

J&J did, however, kick off the year with what remains the largest transaction of 2025. The company paid $14.6 billion for Intra-Cellular, gaining approved schizophrenia med Caplyta and a pipeline of other neuroscience assets. Afterward, Duato and crew said that deals would shrink.

Duato’s more recent comments point to a doubling down on J&J’s internal drug discovery, but the CEO left the door open for some early-stage opportunities “that we can nurture with our scale in every area, clinical development, manufacturing, commercialization, and that’s where we are going.”

Roche

Comfortable: $60 billion
Stretch: $119 billion

Roche had been fairly mum on its M&A plans of late, sticking to big ticket licensing deals, including a $5.3 billion pact with Zealand Pharma for an obesity asset. But on September 18, that stalemate broke, as Roche offered $2.4 billion for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) biotech 89bio.

The deal fits right into Roche’s recent interest in metabolic disorders, which was underscored by the Zealand partnership.

Prior to the 89bio deal, Roche Pharma CEO Teresa Graham gave a frustratingly vague answer to a question on M&A during the Swiss pharma’s first half earnings call in July. The analyst was probing for details on whether Roche would go after a company in the PD-L1/VEGF space. Graham demurred, agreeing that oncology is a focus of Roche’s deal hunt but declining to give specifics.

“We look at thousands and thousands of deals a year. And certainly, oncology is a focus area, but we look at many different oncology mechanisms and other diseases. So I won’t comment on any specific one at this juncture,” Graham said.

Before 89bio, Roche’s last acquisition was a clutch of CDK inhibitors developed by Regor Pharmaceuticals for $850 million upfront just over a year ago.

Merck

Comfortable: $58 billion
Stretch: $115 billion

Merck has been busy conducting deals of late, including acquiring Verona Pharma in July for $10 billion and EyeBio for $3 billion in mid-2024. Both of these brought “a multibillion-dollar opportunity,” CEO Rob Davis told Morgan Stanley Conference attendees on September 8. The Verona deal is so far the second largest acquisition of the year behind J&J’s $14.6 billion Intra-Cellular grab.

“So as we sit here today, we feel good about the pipeline we’re building, the commercial potential we have. We have to realize it, we have to add to it,” Davis said. “We’re going to continue to invest in, augment and accelerate our internal pipeline. And we’re going to continue to look to do business development. So we’re not slowing down across any of those fronts.”

Merck is currently heading towards a significant patent cliff as cash cow immuno-oncology stalwart Keytruda will lose exclusivity in the next few years. When considering potential acquisitions, Davis said Merck watches out for new mechanisms of action, first-in-class or best-in-class potential or assets that can fill an unmet need.

“We like to talk about first, best, next,” Davis said.

That means considering the combination potential of an asset, which has become a key pillar of the Keytruda franchise.

“I feel like we’ve done a good job. We’ve moved with urgency. We’ve invested over $50 billion into business development since I’ve become CEO,” Davis said.

He suggested that Merck needs a few more deals the size of Verona or EyeBio, but he wouldn’t completely rule out a blockbuster deal.

“I’m not opposed to doing a commercial deal. But it has to be one that still comes down to the basis of science. I think doing something just to solve a short-term problem is the wrong answer. It has to be sustainable,” Davis said. “So the $1 billion to $15 billion that we’ve been following continues to be our preferred area, but we remain open to others if the parameters of value, science come together in the right way.”

Novo Nordisk

Comfortable: $63 billion
Stretch: $113 billion

It’s safe to say that things at Novo Nordisk are in flux, as new CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar has just taken the helm. He has not yet laid out his strategy for business development but is conducting a review of the business and implementing an aggressive cost-cutting plan that is expected to claim some 9,000 employees.

If we set aside the acquisition of contract development and manufacturing organization Catalent, which was actually done through parent organization Novo Holdings, Novo Nordisk has not done an M&A transaction since 2023. Instead, the company has stuck to licensing and research pacts to bolster its pipeline.

But we got a sense that there might be some announcements to come when newly minted executive vice president of R&D Martin Holste Lange, who also serves as chief scientific officer, nearly let slip some big news at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes 61st Annual Meeting on September 17.

“So exciting times ahead. And at the same time, with my new job and new title, I’m obviously also focused very much on building the research pipeline and portfolio—and I was about to say something I was not supposed to say,” Lange said. “But in the not-so-distant future, you will hear more about what we plan to do with the research pipeline and how we progress that.”

Novartis

Comfortable: $45 billion
Stretch: $92 billion

Novartis is undeniably on a deal spree, with three acquisitions this year alone, plus multiple licensing deals to bring in even more potential programs down the line.

Executives have not been shy about their desire for more deals.

“It’s not for lack of trying or any risk averseness. We would like to find more bolt-on M&A opportunities to continue to further strengthen our pipelines,” CFO Harry Kirsch said in a July earnings call.

Overall, Novartis has spent roughly $6.18 billion on M&A this year already across three deals, which is firmly in bolt-on territory.

https://www.biospace.com/business/the-top-big-pharmas-have-1-2t-in-stretch-m-a-firepower-available

'Waters admits Dems forced gov shutdown to get ‘health care for everybody’ — including illegals'

  Longtime Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) acknowledged that her party forced the government into a shutdown on Wednesday in order to secure “health care for everybody” — including illegal immigrants.

Waters, 87, was questioned outside the US Capitol Tuesday about Democrats’ opposition to a stopgap funding bill in both chambers of Congress that would have kept the government’s lights on until Nov. 21.

“Are Democrats demanding health care for illegal aliens?” asked LindellTV reporter Alison Steinburg.

“Democrats are demanding health care for everybody,” Waters responded, hours before her Senate colleagues blocked the spending measure.

“We want to save lives,” she added. “We want to make sure that health care is available to those who would die not having the help of their government.”

“So you’re good with a government shutdown, even if it means giving health care to people who aren’t American citizens?” Steinburg followed up.

“That’s what you’re pushing on,” Waters shot back. “You’re standing here and you’re trying to make me say that somehow we’re going to put non-citizens over Americans.

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A Republican majority was able to pass the legislation in the House, but it failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster with enough Democratic support.Xinhua/Shutterstock

“Quit it! Stop it!” she fumed. “This is the kind of journalism we don’t need. You’re divisive.”

Only three Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada as well as Rep. Jared Golden of Maine — and independent Sen. Angus King, also of Maine, voted for the so-called “clean” continuing resolution.

A Republican majority was able to pass the legislation in the House, but it failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) both whipped their caucuses against the spending bill, claiming it didn’t do enough to preserve Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of 2025.

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“Quit it! Stop it!” Waters fumed at the LindellTV reporter. “This is the kind of journalism we don’t need. You’re divisive.”LindellTV

The Trump White House and Republicans have also been needling Democrats for tucking a provision into their competing funding measure that would broaden non-citizens’ access to taxpayer-funded health care services.

“Maxine Waters admitted that she is demanding Healthcare for Illegal Aliens, and it’s going to be Top of the Line, taking American Taxpayers’ Healthcare away from them!” the president posted on his Truth Social Wednesday.

“The Chuck Schumer, [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government because they said to us ‘We will open the government but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens,'” Vice President JD Vance also said at a White House briefing Wednesday.

“In terms of health care, the reality is they are just not being honest,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) insisted to Fox Business Network. “The amount of money that actually is going towards people who are undocumented is such a small portion of the Medicaid cuts or the ACA, if at all.”

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The Trump White House and Republicans have also been needling Democrats for tucking a provision into their competing funding measure that would broaden non-citizens’ access taxpayer-funded health care services.AFP via Getty Images

Jeffries, in a viral interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, also said it was a “lie” that Democrats want to give away health insurance benefits to illegal immigrants.

“But what you support does bring back funding for emergency Medicaid to hospitals, some of which does pay for undocumented immigrants,” Tapper pushed back.

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“Maxine Waters admitted that she is demanding Healthcare for Illegal Aliens, and it’s going to be Top of the Line, taking American Taxpayers’ Healthcare away from them!” the president posted on his Truth Social Wednesday.ZUMAPRESS.com

Between fiscal years 2017 and 2023, “federal and state governments spent a total of $27 billion on emergency Medicaid services for people who were ineligible for full Medicaid coverage because of their immigration status,” the Congressional Budget Office found.

Provisions in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will eliminate non-citizens’ access to the services starting next year.

Some moderates in both parties have been discussing compromise legislation that could preserve some of the ACA subsidies to avoid a spike in health care premium costs.

At least five more Democrats must break with their party to move the clean CR through the Senate. The next vote on that measure is expected Friday.

https://nypost.com/2025/10/02/us-news/rep-maxine-waters-admits-dems-forced-government-shutdown-to-get-health-care-for-everybody-including-illegal-immigrants/

We Are All Charlie Kirk…Until We’re Not

 

By Robin M. Itzler

Millions of people throughout the world prayed during the day-long September 21 Charlie Kirk memorial. The event celebrated a young man who had fulfilled a dream of reaching out to our youth and teaching them the importance of faith, family, and country. A teenager who started with pennies in his pockets and immense energy, Kirk achieved his dream before his 31st birthday. (Charlie’s birthday is October 14.)

His assassination brought most decent people throughout the world to tears.

Image created using AI.

In his honor and memory, we vowed to become an avalanche of Charlie Kirks. “We are all Charlie Kirk!” is our mantra as we verbally battle a bitter and angry army of young Americans who have been indoctrinated in Marxist public schools. A generation that has been taught they can change their gender by teachers who mumble whatever insanity Randi Weingarten espouses to Rachel Maddow or the gals on The View.

“We are all Charlie Kirk!”

Martyred in death, millions of high school and college students are now joining or starting a Turning Point club. There have been more than 120,000 requests to start a club. Older people will mentor or donate.

My worry is that this stratospheric energy and enthusiasm might evaporate since Americans have very short memories. Three recent examples:

One. In the weeks and months following the September 11, 2001, Muslim attack on the United States, the world chimed, “We are all Americans!”

If you had told Americans following the 9/11 attack that in less than a decade the nation would elect Barack Hussein Obama, a man with a very sketchy religious, educational, and political background, they would have thought you had lost your mind. Yet, by 2008, anyone making reasonable inquiries about Obama’s questionable life story (much of it sealed) was called racist.

In November 2008, the nation elected and then four years later re-elected Barack Hussein Obama. So much for “We are all Americans!” on September 11, 2001.

Two. The 9/11 devastation occurred in three places: New York City, the Pentagon in D.C., and a Pennsylvania field. Manhattan, with its fallen World Trade Center Twin Towers and the most deaths, was the epicenter. If you had told New Yorkers in the weeks and months following 9/11 that, in less than 25 years, Big Apple voters might elect a communist Muslim as their mayor, you would have been placed in a padded room. But here we are, looking at a strong possibility that a communist Muslim with little to no business experience will soon run America’s most important city.

So much for “We are all New Yorkers!” said 24 years earlier.

Three. In the days and weeks following Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians, the world reacted with “We are all Israelis!” (Of the 250 kidnapped, there are about 50 hostages—dead or alive—remain in captivity.) There was near-universal condemnation of Hamas for brutally murdering, raping, torturing, and kidnapping innocent people. Israel’s beautiful blue and white flag was flown and illuminated across all corners of the globe, including the Brandenburg Gate in Germany, the Eiffel Tower in France, the famed Sydney Opera House in Australia, and 10 Downing Street in Britain.

Yet, less than two years later, many of those nations that immediately condemned Hamas and proclaimed “We are all Israelis!” are now rewarding Hamas by demanding a suicidal two-state solution. (“Solution” as in the Nazi’s “Solution to the Jewish Problem.”)

Hamas (and other aligned terrorist organizations) do not want peace with Israel. They want the entire piece of Israel. There can be no “two states” when one wants the other gone.

With Europe’s bulging Muslim populations, several European nations should carve out land and say (in Arabic), “Here is your state, as you are already taking over our nation.”

How long before Europe is called Little Arabia? According to Pew Research, between 2010 and 2020, the share of the European population that is Christian dropped by 67 percent.

Christians - 8.8%

Muslims +15.9%

How long before America is called Little Arabia? Vince Coyner wrote about this at American Thinker:

In 2001, the year of 9/11, there were 1.5 million Muslims in America. Today, there are four million, an increase of 150%, eight times what the population at large grew. In Europe, over the same period, the number of Muslims has gone from 15 million to more than 45 million, essentially tripling. This, while Christianity declined from 78% to 63% of the population in the US and dropped by both a percentage of the population and absolute numbers in Europe.

So much for “We are all Israelis!” shouted on October 7, 2023.

There are other examples of how quickly Americans forget history, even history that they have lived through.

Many will say that Charlie Kirk’s assassination is different from these other events. I pray they are right as the organization promotes building a generation of Americans who value faith, family, and country. That is the nation our Founding Fathers desired when they risked life and fortune to create the United States of America.

But I worry today’s enthusiasm might be forgotten in the coming months or years, so please prove me wrong.

Robin M. Itzler is a regular contributor to American Thinker. She is the founder and editor of Patriot Neighbors, a free weekly national newsletter. Robin can be reached at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/10/we_are_all_charlie_kirk_until_we_re_not.html

The Democrat playbook on shutdowns, which includes most of the media, is always the same

 

By Jack Hellner

Democrats, not content with reapproving their previous Biden-era budget, demand specific things to be added for them to vote yes, and if they don’t get their way, they will gladly put a massive number of federal workers on furlough. Then they blame Republicans for the obstruction.

This year, their demands are huge. The government is broke, and the Democrats claim they care about the deficits, but they want to add expenses. They hated the Big Beautiful Bill, and now they are holding the government hostage as they seek to reverse things that just passed.

They’re demanding that huge subsidies for a few million people on Obamacare continue, or else they will keep millions of people temporarily unemployed, and keep national parks closed (among other things). It is a shame that Democrats seem to care so little about lower paid cafeteria workers and janitors as they demand massive subsidies for higher income people.

These are the same Democrats who voted to limit these COVID subsidies to a few years as they pretended that the Inflation Reduction Act would pay for itself. The media and other Democrats live in a fantasy world where they pretend a lot. They know that once they start a spending or subsidy program, they can get it extended indefinitely because someone who gets the benefit will always be hurt if it were to end. They really don’t care how much money the government has to print to fund their largesse. Per the Daily Signal yesterday:

Schumer’s Massive Gamble

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., actually went through with it. He and Senate Democrats shut down the government over using American taxpayer dollars to fund transgender surgery for minors, abortion, and illegal immigrants’ health care.

In 2015, 2018, and 2025, Democrats threatened to close the entire government if one of their favorite special interest groups, Planned Parenthood, didn’t get their huge annual kickbacks. Yet, when I did my internet search on this subject, I got this answer from Google AI to my simple question:

Did the Democrats threaten to shut down the government if Planned Parenthood didn’t get funded?

Instead of just answering the question yes, Google frames their answer as:

Threats of government shutdowns have occurred repeatedly in recent years over disputes about funding for Planned Parenthood. However, it is typically Republican-led efforts to defund Planned Parenthood that prompt the showdowns, with Democrats vowing to block such measures.

Everyone should remember that Google is essentially a huge media outlet and they are extremely biased with their algorithms. Recently, Google admitted to censoring certain content at the behest of bureaucrats in the Biden administration, and this story is mostly buried by the rest of the media because it is an inconvenient story when they are intentionally lying to the public that Trump is the fascist.

My intelligent guess is the reason most of the media is hiding the Google story is because they were also willing colluders with the Biden administration to keep a lot of information hidden. Most of the media have interfered in many elections to block Trump and his agenda while they claim that Trump is the threat to free and fair elections.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/10/the_democrat_playbook_on_shutdowns_which_includes_most_of_the_media_is_always_the_same.html

Illegals are getting more violent than ever against ICE officers carrying out their duties

By Monica Showalter

Amid handwringing and harrumphing from the left, President Trump's declaration of "war from within" has a lot to do with what federal law enforcement officers are encountering in their attempted arrests of illegal aliens in the U.S.

Here are a couple in the past day that have barely scratched the surface of the news, this one from the Department of Homeland Security itself:

WASHINGTON — Today, in Portland, Oregon, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the arrests of four criminal illegal aliens who conducted laser strikes on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopter in an attempt to temporarily blind the pilot’s ability to see. This was incredibly dangerous for the aircraft personnel and for the public’s safety.  

Aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft is a federal crime, and during the investigation, it was determined the laser came from a nearby residence. A search warrant conducted by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), found four criminal illegal aliens occupying the residence where the laser originated.  

“These four illegal aliens endangered the lives of our CBP personnel, the safety of every other aircraft in flight during the time AND put everyone on the ground in immediate danger. DHS law enforcement is facing a 1,000% increase in attacks against them,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “This strike happened just days after the terrorist attack on an ICE facility in Dallas and as rioters were arrested with guns outside a Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility with weapons. Secretary Noem has been clear: if you lay a hand on law enforcement you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” 

Here's one in Chicago, via ABC News:

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a man who was resisting arrest and subsequently dragged the agent with his car, according an ICE spokesperson.

ICE officers were conducting a vehicle stop in a Chicago suburb on Friday morning when the suspect -- identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Silverio Villegas-Gonzales -- "resisted and attempted to drive his vehicle into the arrest team," subsequently dragging the agent, ICE said.

DHS said the suspect dragged the ICE officer "a significant distance."

 

This follows the incident recently where the Des Moines school superintendent, who was here in the country illegally, with a final deportation order, had been caught by ICE after a chase, bearing a loaded gun and a hunting knife.

It's an amazing pattern -- illegals acting as though they have a fighting right to live in this country when in reality, they are foreigners. And all ICE wants to do is send them home, which is hardly inhumane, let alone a death sentence.

Where does this increasing violence come from?

Did the NGOs and their media allies convince them they had a right to live here? Perhaps.

Or is it mainly because they have been so deeply involved in cartel life that they are either cartel members or affiliated criminals. People like that will fight police and shoot to kill, it's what they do.

I suspect it's mainly the latter -- as the Catholic and Protestant bishops seek to convince us that every migrant is a sweet little daisy, the scary reality is that a disproportionate number of border-surge illegal migrants are the cartel criminals themselves. This is evident in the lower crime rates in many Latin American and other countries, made that way by the fact that they are now here, and in the lower crime rates in areas where ICE has cleared the illegals out, with some parts of Los Angeles noted.

ICE is obviously a government agency with a dirty, dangerous, job, given the aggression of these least-fit-to-live-among-us illegals. Now they are getting more brazen, more violent, and more willing to attack lawmen, the world of Pablo Escobar, brought to our door. These won't be the last incidents of 'resistance' to the law, either. They are lawless, they will continue to fight the law.

This vindicates what President Trump said, that the enemy in fact is within our own borders. And it makes the Democrats, who as of now, are defending the thug in Chicago, look worse than ever.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/10/illegals_are_getting_more_violent_than_ever_against_ice_officers_carrying_out_their_duties.html

Scilex stock move -- 13D disclosure

 This Schedule 13D filing reveals some big developments between Scilex and Datavault AI. Scilex sold part of Semnur for Bitcoin, used that to buy into Datavault AI, and now holds 15M shares plus rights to 263.9M more. This isn’t just a passive investment — the Voting Agreements and warrant suggest Scilex is positioning itself to take control of Datavault AI once shareholder approval is secured. https://ir.datavaultsite.com/sec-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0001193125-25-228302/primary_doc.html

https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=SCLX&p=d

Google to build new data center in Arkansas

 Google LLC announced on Thursday that it will build a news data center in West Memphis as part of its multi-billion-dollar investment in the state of Arkansas.

The advanced data center campus will comprise a data center, office buildings, a substation facility, and other infrastructure, and will be constructed on a site covering more than 1,000 acres. The new data center is expected to create hundreds of operations jobs in the region, the company said.

"We see AI and the energy powering it to be the innovations that will define this century. The upside of AI cannot be unlocked without the energy it requires. That is why Google is building energy capacity that protects affordability for ratepayers and creates jobs that will drive the AI-powered economy," Alphabet and Google President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat commented.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Google-to-build-new-data-center-in-Arkansas/64919201