Biotech companies are often built to be acquired. Perhaps that's a protective mechanism that helps to justify the massive investments required to develop molecules from "works great in mice!" to regulatory approval. Institutional investors, fund managers, and retail investors like you and me generally don't like pouring money into businesses if there's no payoff for years… and years… and years.

Despite a brutal recession that has engulfed the American biotech sector since 2022, the pace of acquisitions has actually been accelerating in recent years. At least 48 drug developers were acquired in 2025 – double the number from 2018 – according to data compiled by BioPharma Dive.

Solt DB crunched the numbers in different ways for additional nerdy insights. For example, investors might wonder what month of the year is the most common for biotech acquisitions?

Whereas Monday (105 total acquisitions) and Tuesday (55) were clearly the most common days of the week for announcing an acquisition from 2018 through 2025, acquisitions weren't necessarily more common in any given month of the year.

A few observable trends include:

• Acquisitions were more likely in the second half of each calendar year (153 total, or 54%) than the first half (129 total, or 46%).
• Acquisitions were least likely in February. This might be driven by the fact many of the world's largest drug developers are preparing full-year earnings reports for late January and early February.
• Acquisitions were most likely during the months of October (32) and August (29). This might be driven by the timing of major scientific conferences. October is four months after the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, while August is four months after the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting. These two conferences are specifically focused on oncology, which is the most common therapeutic area in drug development and would therefore drive the most acquisitions.

Does the timing of major scientific conferences really line up with acquisitions? It could, but it requires another layer of analysis. Rather than ask what month of the year is most common for an acquisition generally, investors might instead ask if drug developers focused on a specific therapeutic area (ex: oncology, cardiometabolic, immunology) are more likely to be acquired during specific months. If the correlation holds, then the data might show surges in acquisitions of specific types of companies some time after major medical meetings.