Healthcare and pharma services M&A Autumn 2025

Will recent mega-deals shift healthcare and pharma M&A to full speed ahead?

By Peter Jennings and Jessica Sandercock 

Could recent headline-grabbing transactions signal a return of the large healthcare deal? 

For the first half of 2025, healthcare and pharma services M&A ticked along with high volumes of small trade deals. 

However, in Q3 and early Q4 larger players have begun to return to the table. 

In July, Japan’s Terumo Corporation bought OrganOx for USD 1.5 billion. More recently, US firm Welltower has made several large transactions, including the HC-one and Aria portfolio as well as paying £5.2 billion for Barchester’s UK portfolio in the world’s largest care home deal.  

Both deals show the attraction of UK assets for international investors and will be a shot in the arm for market confidence.

Social care 

As the Welltower deal shows, international investors see UK social and elderly care as an attractive target. Demand for services is high, due to an ageing population and a scarcity of assets caused by high build costs.  

In May 2025, we advised care home group Stow Healthcare on its sale to CGEN Care, a deal giving the US operator a foothold in the UK market.  

In Q3 2025, there were 24 deals in this subsector, driven by domestic groups building their portfolios. For example, in August 2025, Deer Capital-backed Hartford Care acquired five homes in Kent from The Graham Care Group. 

Other notable deals include Foundation Partners, and Deer Capital backing the MBO of Select Healthcare in September 2025. The 32-strong portfolio covers a range of care needs from dementia to brain injury.   

The specialist care market has mainly seen smaller transactions with bolt-on activity from Consensus acquiring Creative Care, Eden Futures acquiring Care Wish and Cygnet acquiring Woodrowe Healthcare. We expect to see some notable large deals close in the next few months, which will be a much-welcomed boost for the sector. 

Pharma services 

There were 22 UK pharma services deals in Q3 2025.  

International buyers continued to pursue UK pharma services business and market access companies as a gateway to Europe.   

In July 2025, US-based pharmaceutical consultancy firm Herspiegel acquired Decisive Consulting in the UK, with our team providing sell-side advice. Decisive is a disruptor in market access, with strong AI capabilities, and this acquisition alongside their investment into UK-based Fiecon earlier in the year bolsters Herspiegel’s position as a global player with strong market-access capabilities.  

Terumo’s acquisition of OrganOx for a rumoured USD 1.5 billion is a good news story for UK university spin outs in the medtech/pharma tech space. The University of Oxford spin-out, which develops devices to preserve organs during transplants, grew successfully through venture capital funding.  

Strong AI capabilities are increasingly driving valuation premiums across pharma services, particularly when used to drive efficiencies in areas like pre-clinical and clinical testing and market access.  

UK private equity is becoming more bullish towards pharma services than in prior years. Earlier this year, for example, we helped contract research organisation FibroFind with its sale to London-based Vespa Capital. 

In Q3 2025, UK private equity firms fought off competitors in two notable deals.  

In August 2025, LDC took a majority investment in Panthera Biopartners. Panthera is the UK’s largest site management organisation (SMO) for commercial clinical trials and has grown rapidly after earlier growth capital rounds.  

In July 2025, Phoenix Equity Partners made a strategic investment in FutureMeds, a pan-European SMO and clinical-trial site network. FutureMeds operates multiple sites across Europe and offers hybrid and decentralised trial capabilities. 

Medical products  

There were 24 medical products transactions in Q3 2025.  

Deals have been boosted by resilient demand and the extension of the transition period to MDR compliance, which allows CE-marked medical devices to remain on the market until 2027 – 2028, easing immediate regulatory pressure and providing greater certainty. 

Notable medical products deals 

• In July 2025, ARCHIMED sold Direct Healthcare Group to Rhône Group, another private equity firm, while retaining a minority stake. The transaction was completed alongside Rhône’s purchase of Invacare 

• In August 2025, Sweden’s Asker Healthcare continued its UK acquisition campaign with the purchase of software firm Health Net Connections, which specialises in ultrasound imaging and reporting software. It acquired Hospital Services Limited at the start of the year 

• In July 2025, Legal & General co-led a USD 55 million funding round in Ultromics, a UK-based company using AI to improve cardiac diagnostics. The investment supports Ultromics’ expansion into the US market and scaling 

Not on this side of the Atlantic, but worth mentioning – US private equity firms Blackstone and TPG said in October they’ll buy medical diagnostics firm Hologic for USD 18.3 billion, including debt, in the largest medical devices deal in almost two decades. This is another example of a mega-deal that will drive M&A confidence.

Healthcare services – NHS, private, and corporate  

There were 24 deals in this sector in Q3 2025. 

Healthcare service companies are adapting their offerings to a structural shift in how healthcare is consumed.  

For example, the burden of occupational health is increasingly falling on employers, creating demand for private providers. Long NHS waiting lists are also driving consumers to paid services.  

• In July 2025, US private equity firm Warburg Pincus agreed to acquire a majority stake in Health UK occupational health specialist Health Partners, reportedly valuing the business at over £300 million

• In July 2025, Spire Healthcare acquired Physiolistic, its first acquisition of a physiotherapy business

• In July 2025, Latus Group (UK) Ltd acquired Peritus Health Management, an occupational health, health surveillance, and hygiene services provider with a fleet of 11 mobile health surveillance units

Though there has been some consolidation in UK dentistry, the market remains fragmented. Buyers are also seeing an opportunity to improve productivity in target assets.  

 In July 2025, Bridgepoint acquired MyDentist, the UK’s largest provider of affordable dentistry, operating more than 500 practices across the UK, with over 3,500 dental professionals and 2,500 surgeries. 

Debt availability

The debt markets have continued to strengthen in 2025, building from the return of confidence and appetite to deploy that we saw in 2024. The appetite is across all classes, but particularly private debt which, with EUR 84.9 billion deployed in 927 transactions across Europe in the first nine months of 2025, is on track to break previous deployment records. The increased appetite to deploy has also been reflected in pricing, with both margins and arrangement fees seeing sustained downward pressure as lenders compete for deals. Healthcare remains a key sector for lenders, remaining the third most active with EUR 13.2 billion deployed in the first nine months of 2025. 

Public markets

There have been a few promising signs for public equity markets with equity fundraises in the sector:

• In August, Oxford Biomedica raised £60 million in equity, as well as refinancing its debt with new debt facilities of up to USD 125 million  

• In October, Avacta Group plc raised £16 million on AIM in an oversubscribed placing to continue R&D  

On the other hand, in September, Spire Healthcare announced it was considering a sale as part of an ongoing strategic review. 

Q4 and beyond 

Q4 deal volumes will, to some extent, be boosted by sellers racing to complete ahead of the Autumn Budget on November 26 2025. 

Meanwhile, international interest will continue to drive deal activity, as will the ripple effect from recent mega-deals.  

Our M&A team is busier than ever with several transactions in progress, a clear signal that healthcare dealmaking is gaining momentum as we move through Q4 and beyond.