They’ve come thisclose to sealing a deal, but European biotechs have drawn the short stick in the latest round of biotech buyouts. According to The WSJ Deal Journal, there’s been about $137 billion worth of healthcare deals this year where the scooped-up company has been U.S.-based.

In Europe, however, there’s only been a small peep worth of deals – $5 billion worth.

Here’s some of the scrapped EU deals that shoulda’ been or that everyone has been (lukewarm) abuzz about:

• Crucell – the vaccine maker had a deal set in place with Wyeth, but that got scrapped once Kindler and Co. (i.e. Pfizer) announced the Wyeth merger.

• Nycomed – Rumors were afloat that Nyco wanted to do an IPO. Then, the rumors changed to selling the company. The last we heard from Nycomed they were trying to find a partner for their COPD drug, Daxas (roflumilast).

• Iceland’s Actavis was also abuzz, but then the company withdrew its sale after buyers found the company’s debt scary.

• Solvay is the latest company trying to get something done. Yesterday was the deadline for buyers to get their bids in for the company’s pharma unit, which some say is valued in the $5-6B range. Also yesterday, Abbott and Takeda announced they would not be bidding. Uh-oh.

What about the U.S.? Tons of deals…here’s the big ones so far:

• Pfizer/Wyeth – $68 billion

• Roche/Genentech – $46.8 billion

• Merck/Schering-Plough – $41 billion

• GSK/Stiefel – $3 billion

• Gilead/CV Therapeutics – $1.4 billion

• Johnson & Johnson/Cougar Biotechnology -$1 billion

• Lundbeck/Ovation Pharmaceuticals – $900M

• Sanofi/BiPar Sciences – $500M

• Vertex/Virochem Pharma – $375M

• Endo/Indevus Pharmaceuticals – $370M

• Valeant Pharmaceuticals/Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences – $285M

Wow, that’s a long list!!!

Here’s the WSJ article.

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