The story so far of how an aspiring Western returnee researcher became a fully charged pharma entrepreneur in China’s wild world of drug innovation.

Derived from Strategic Transactions, Elsevier Business Intelligence’s premium source for tracking life sciences deal activity, the Dealmaking column is a survey of recent health care transactions listed by relevant industry segment –In Vitro Diagnostics, Medical Devices, and Pharmaceuticals – and then categorized by type –Acquisition, Alliance, or Financing.

Follow-on public offerings continued to dominate, with 19 transactions making up almost half of Q2’s $2.7 billion financing volume. M&A dollars, up nearly four times that of Q1, totaled $34.7 billion, for 28 completed transactions, seven of which topped the billion dollar mark. In alliances, the Q2 potential deal value – also largely increased over the previous quarter’s – marked possibly the highest amount ever seen along with maybe the most expensive deal ever: Walgreen $6.6 billion agreement to purchase a minority equity share in Alliance Boots, bringing in over half of Q2’s value.

In one of several large up-front deals it’s done in the past few years, Abbott paid $110 million for Action’s kidney injury candidate. Agilent bought cancer diagnostics firm Dako for $2.2 billion. And both biopharma and medical device financing went up in May compared with April.