As January began, the buzz was around the rush for the acquisition of Sanofi’s European generics business unit. Several Indian players, including Intas Pharma, Aurobindo, Zydus Cadila, Torrent Pharma evinced interest in grabbing Sanofi’s $2 billion asset, which generated sales of €571 million in the first nine months of 2017 with chronic and oncology portfolios, reports said. Sanofi put the generics unit on the block as part of its strategy to turn the European drug maker’s business around.

Among the potential Indian bidders, Intas has Temasek and Chrys Capital as financial partners. Headquartered in Ahmedabad of Western India, Intas already built a base in Europe through buying out Teva’s generics business in the UK valued at $764 million in 2016. Intas was also aggressively pursuing Mallinckrodt’s generics drug business in the U.S. The UK-based firm is operating in the therapeutic segment of controlled substances. Access to its opioids, which are having high entry barrier, would be a big boost to the buyer as they command high margins.

Aurobindo Pharma, the next in line, continued its expansion spree by acquiring Portugal’s Generis Farmaceutica SA from Magnum Capital Partners for a consideration of €135 million. The Hyderabad-based APIs and generics maker also bought four biosimilar products from Swiss firm TL Biopharmaceutical AG in 2017.

Zydus Cadila closed a $171 million deal last year to acquire proprietary products with US-based Sentynl Therapeutics.

According to industry analysts, the recent spurt in M&A activity is part of the consolidation process across the value chain due to heightening pricing pressures on generics across leading markets. The merger mania has gripped not only big players backed by sound financial partners, but the mid-caps and small timers too.

Torrent Pharmaceuticals acquired Bio-Pharm, Inc. in the U.S., the Ahmedabad-based company said in January. A generic pharmaceuticals and OTC firm, Bio-Pharm had 10 ANDAs and another 10 ANDAs under review at U.S. FDA.

Additionally, Bio-Pharm has an active pipeline of 17 products. Torrent would expand the acquired facilities including R&D capabilities, Torrent said in a filing. The acquisition provided Torrent with new capabilities including manufacturing and a R&D presence in the U.S.

Ipca Labs picked up NC-based chemistry solutions provider Pisgah Labs, Inc. for $9.65 million in the same month. The Pisgah acquisition would provide the Mumbai-based firm a foothold in the U.S. in the contract research and small-volume manufacturing segment. Pisgah would support Phase II to commercial scale programs and also enable Ipca to manufacture small volume APls and intermediates for the U.S. market, the company said.

Last November, Alembic Pharmaceuticals, completed the acquisition of U.S.-based oral solid and liquid products maker Orit Laboratories LLC. Orit owns an 8,600 square-foot state-of-art R&D and pilot manufacturing facility. Headquartered in the Vadodara city of Gujarat, Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is a maker of APIs and generic formulations for domestic and international markets. This first cross border transaction would grow Alembic’s U.S. generics business in a measured way, company officials said.

Strides Shasun, a Bengaluru-based manufacturer, said last August that its Swedish arm Arrow acquired Australian operations of Amneal Pharmaceuticals. Arrow Pharmaceuticals, under the terms of the agreement, would acquire 100% of the issued capital of Amneal Pharmaceutical Australia.

The Amneal buy would accelerate Arrow’s market reach and help in attaining a leadership position in the Australian generics market. The acquisition would also bring Amneal’s customer base into the network of supporting pharmacies and strengthen the offering the company brings to all customers, according to a Strides Shasun statement.

Meanwhile, among the notable inbound deals, Recipharm bought the remaining 26% from Nitin Lifesciences, an Indian sterile injectables CMO. Two years back, the Swedish CDMO reached an agreement with privately owned Nitin to pick up 74% stake for about $105 million. As per the deal, Recipharm had an option to buy the rest by the end of 2017. Recipharm would pay around $43 million cash and about $10 million in shares for the remaining 26% of the shares that it did not currently own.

Recipharm established its presence in India with the purchase of CDMO operations from Kemwell, a contract manufacturer located in Bengaluru. Recipharm signed a $205 million deal with Kemwell’s businesses in India, U.S. and Sweden.

The deal provided access to significant cost effective development capabilities besides aligning U.S. and Indian development and technology operations with the combined company’s manufacturing capabilities in India and Europe.