Biotech M&A deals dominate key Q1 metric

The analysts at Thomson Reuters have been crunching the numbers and found that the life sciences industry produced the biggest round of activity in M&A by one key measure during the first quarter. Looking at the disclosed valuations of the deals involved, the new report concludes that the $594.3 million worth of deals in biotech tilted the numbers in favor of the research industry. But a pair of deals--llumina's ($ILMN) $350 million purchase of Verinata Health and the $185 million Incline Therapeutics buyout--skewed the bottom line. There were 8 venture-backed IPOs overall in the quarter, which raised $672 million. The number of IPOs stayed even with Q4, 2012, but the dollars they raised fell by more than half. Release