Full Year 2019 Healthcare Industry Trends

2019 Key Highlights 

The largest deal in 2019 was Dassault Systèmes’ acquisition of Medidata, a provider of SaaS-based clinical development software, for $5.82 billion.

There were 178 financially sponsored transactions with an aggregate value of $14.89 billion, representing 33 percent of the total volume and 44 percent of the total value, respectively.

2019 Key Trends

Total transaction volume in 2019 increased by 14 percent over 2018, from 469 to 534.

Total transaction value in 2019 declined by six percent over 2018, from $36.09 billion to $33.90 billion.

The median revenue multiple shifted from 2.5x in 2018 to 2.3x in 2019. The median EBITDA multiple moved upward during this timeframe from 11.9x to 12.6x.

The segment with the largest rise in volume in 2019 over 2018 was Pharma IT with a 32 percent gain, from 31 to 41 transactions.

The Healthcare IT segment, which saw volume increase 11 percent on a yearly basis, accounted for nearly one-half of the industry’s aggregate volume in 2019.

M&A Market Overview

Berkery Noyes tracked 1,462 Healthcare/Pharma Information and Technology transactions between 2017 and 2019, of which 286 disclosed financial terms, and calculated the aggregate value to be $85.71 billion. Based on known transaction values, we project values of 1,176 undisclosed transactions to be $14.86 billion, totaling $100.56 billion worth of transactions tracked over the past three years.

Disclosed median enterprise value multiples for all segments combined in this report during the last 36 months were 2.3x revenue and 12.6x EBITDA.