With the help of Biomedtracker’s Dealmaking Quarterly Statistics report, Scrip takes a look at the five biggest alliances by value in the first quarter and how they could shape the future of the companies involved, from big pharma to biotech.

Sanofi will pay $17.5m up front to license candidates developed with Adagene’s SAFEbody platform, which can mask antibodies, enabling them to reach cancer targets in the tumor microenvironment.

Public Company Edition: Merging with a special purpose acquisition corporation may be an attractive alternative to an initial public offering, but February’s vigorous IPO pace includes seven recent offerings that raised $480.8m in the US. Also, Cassava raised $200m and KalVista brought in $222.5m.

IPO Edition: Sana leads the group with a $587.5m initial public offering, while Immunocore and Bolt follow with $200m-plus IPOs. The 10 newly public companies generated a 43.3% average return on 8 Feb.