Belgian biopharma firm UCB has entered one of the most aggressive strategic expansion phases in its recent history, using acquisitions and partnerships across the United States, China and Europe to rapidly expand its biotechnology capabilities.
The dealmaking comes amid intensifying global competition in biotechnology, pushing European mid-sized companies to move earlier and faster to secure innovative therapies.
The Brussels-based company announced in early May that it would acquire US biotech company Candid Therapeutics in a transaction worth up to $2.2 billion, including $2 billion in upfront cash. The deal gives UCB access to cizutamig, a BCMA x CD3 bispecific T-cell engager being studied in autoimmune diseases.
The acquisition followed UCB’s April deal to buy another American biotechnology company, Neurona Therapeutics, for up to $1.15 billion, adding a cell therapy programme in epilepsy.
“They look at everything that is good,” Jan De Kerpel, managing director & Head Life Sciences at Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Banking, told Euractiv, arguing that UCB’s two US acquisitions should not be interpreted as evidence that Europe lacks innovation.
He pointed to recent European biotechnology transactions, including Genmab’s acquisition of Dutch biotech company Merus and Gilead Sciences’s acquisition of German biotech company Tubulis, as evidence that European biotechnology companies are also generating globally sought-after innovation and attracting multi-billion-dollar deals.
According to De Kerpel, the United States simply has a much larger pool of venture-backed biotechnology companies built to be acquired. “Everything that is backed by venture capital and specialist investors is buyable,” he said.
Moving earlier in a global biotech race
For De Kerpel, UCB’s accelerated dealmaking reflects the increasingly competitive nature of the global biotechnology market, particularly in immunology and oncology. “The sector is hot in general,” he said. “The two most competitive domains for a long time are oncology, immunology, and inflammation. Immunology and inflammation are really where UCB is.”
That competition is also forcing European mid-sized biotech and pharmaceutical companies to move earlier in development cycles to secure promising technologies before larger global players step in. “A mid-cap player like UCB has to go a little earlier in the development,” De Kerpel said. “And move quickly, because otherwise it can go to the bigger players.”
UCB’s immunology blockbuster Bimzelx is generating strong revenues, allowing the company to reinvest aggressively into the next generation of therapies. “They have cash,” De Kerpel said. “But they also know, just like everyone else, this is going to go well for a while. But then there will be patents and competitors. And then they have to get ready for the next wave.”
EU biotech sector enters more mature phase
For De Kerpel, UCB’s recent moves also signal a broader shift taking place across Europe’s biotechnology sector itself. Historically, acquisitions in life sciences were dominated by multinational pharmaceutical giants. Today, Europe is increasingly producing a second layer of biotech and speciality pharmaceutical companies capable of becoming strategic acquirers themselves.
“The new players have access to substantial cash piles, allowing them to look for sizeable acquisitions,” De Kerpel said. “That proves that our sector in Europe is also becoming more mature.”
The trend comes as Brussels prepares its Biotech Act and repeatedly warns that Europe risks falling behind the United States and China in biotechnology, clinical development and scale-up financing. Yet UCB’s recent expansion suggests some European companies are already adapting to the new competitive landscape on their own.
EU financing problem remains unresolved
Despite the sector’s growing maturity, De Kerpel argued that Europe still faces a major structural weakness: financing.
While Europe continues producing strong science and globally competitive biotechnology companies, many firms still need to turn to the United States for later-stage capital and scale-up financing. “The European capital system does not work,” he said. “Everything that comes before commercialisation has to look for its capital in America or elsewhere.”
For that reason, “a group of leading European VCs, Van Lanschot Kempen and other stakeholders recently launched the European Life Sciences Coalition to strengthen Europe’s life science investment ecosystem, by tackling both the issues in the private funding and the (lack of) European public stock market,” he added.
For De Kerpel, the consequences extend beyond fundraising alone. He pointed to a growing divergence between European biotechnology companies listed only in Europe and those listed exclusively in the United States. Companies listed solely on Nasdaq increasingly shift leadership and strategic gravity toward America as well. “That has a huge impact on the ecosystem,” he said.
The effect extends into leadership, visibility and the broader anchoring of biotechnology ecosystems in Europe. That creates a paradox for Europe’s competitiveness strategy. The continent is increasingly producing globally ambitious biotechnology companies capable of competing for innovation assets worldwide. But many of the next-generation platforms European companies are now buying are still being developed elsewhere, particularly in the United States.
Belgium as an advanced therapy hub
While UCB is sourcing innovation globally, the company is also continuing to invest heavily in Belgium itself. Earlier this month, UCB inaugurated its new €200 million gene therapy development and clinical manufacturing facility in Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium.
For De Kerpel, the company’s Belgian presence remains strategically important despite the company’s increasingly global structure. “UCB is really anchored in Belgium,” he said, pointing to the company’s family ownership, Belgian headquarters and long-standing research and manufacturing activities.
Earlier this year, UCB also signed a licensing agreement with China’s Antengene for ATG-201, reflecting what De Kerpel described as another major shift in the global biotech landscape: China’s emergence as a genuine source of biotechnology innovation. “Compared to the past, there were a lot of me-too medicines and copycats,” he said. “Now there is a lot of innovation.”
De Kerpel nevertheless sees Europe’s biotech trajectory as positive. “We have had a lot of momentum,” he said, pointing to growth in employment, increased company valuations on stock markets and the overall maturity of Europe’s biotechnology ecosystem.
[VA, BM]