Jeff Quillen, partner and co-chair of Foley Hoag’s Life Sciences Industry Group, was featured in two recent Law360 articles analyzing the most significant developments in healthcare and life sciences dealmaking in 2025.

In “The Most Important Healthcare and Life Science Deals of 2025,” Quillen highlighted Eli Lilly’s acquisitions of Verve Therapeutics in June and Adverum in October as positive developments in the field of gene therapy. He noted that “gene therapies had some ups and downs. It’s gone in and out of favor with investors and buyers.” For Lilly, which has seen success with its metabolic obesity programs, these investments are notable. Quillen explained that “they seem to have a management team that’s pretty good at betting on winning programs and they’ve placed a couple bets here on gene therapy.” Quillen also pointed to Pfizer’s $10 billion acquisition of Metsera as a top deal of the year, underscoring the continued growth opportunity in the metabolic obesity space.

In “Trends That Shaped Healthcare Dealmaking in 2025,” Quillen discussed the rise of Chinese biotechs as a major force in global dealmaking. He observed that “while cross-border deals aren’t new, the industry has been closely watching as China becomes a real innovation hub for biotech.” For U.S.-based biotechs focused on selling or licensing novel products to big pharma, “there’s a big new competitor that we’re sort of waking up to.”

Quillen further noted the steady climb of the NASDAQ Biotech Index—up more than 30% from the start of the year—as a positive signal for investors and companies. He said that “that’s something the investors and the companies are observing positively and hoping that’s going to generate more deal activity.”