As some pharma giants pump the brakes on big M&A deals, Bristol Myers Squibb—hot off a series of rapid-fire acquisitions in 2023—says it still has dealmaking cash to deploy if the right target comes along.

BMS can continue to indulge its business development appetite thanks to its strong balance sheet, CEO Christopher Boerner told investors this week at Goldman Sachs’ 2024 Global Healthcare Conference.

“We’re going to be disciplined, as I said, and pay down the debt we accrued in doing the deals last year,” the CEO noted. “But with that in mind, as we look at opportunities, we’re focused on the therapeutic areas we’re in.”

BMS charted a number of high-profile buyouts last year, starting with its $5.8 billion deal for KRAS inhibitor specialist Mirati Therapeutics in October.

Then, shortly before Christmas, the company threw down $14 billion more for Karuna Therapeutics and its promising schizophrenia candidate KarXT. Just before the end of the year, BMS floated another $4.1 billion for radiopharmaceutical-focused RayzeBio.

“We need to make sure we execute against those deals,” Boerner said at Goldman Sachs’ event this week.

“Now, the good news is we closed both RayzeBio and Karuna relatively quickly,” the CEO said. “And so, in terms of digesting those deals, I think we’re well down the path.”

Boerner was particularly enthusiastic about the potential launch of Karuna’s schizophrenia prospect KarXT—up for a decision at the FDA on Sept. 26—which the CEO called a “critically important growth driver.”

While Karuna granted Bristol “immediate entry” into the neuropsychology arena, Boerner figures BMS has room to grow in that field.

"I think it's fair to say that the company is a bit subscale in that space," the CEO said. "And so that's going to be an area of focus for us."

As for RayzeBio, the acquired company last week had to temporarily halt enrollment in the late-stage ACTION-1 study of its lead radiotherapy candidate RYZ101 in neuroendocrine tumors due to a shortage of the isotope actinium. 

Aside from neurology and cancer, BMS is also keeping its dealmaking options open in cardiovascular disease and immunology, where the company is “incredibly excited” about the potential of its prospective cell therapy CD19 NEX-T in autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, Boerner said.

Overall, Boerner said BMS will need to be “strategic in how we allocate capital,” which means a “focus on business development, but business development that’s going to contribute to growth in the back half of the decade.”

Boerner made his comments shortly after Pfizer chief Albert Bourla—speaking at the same Goldman Sachs event—told investors that his company was taking a “breathing period” from major business development moves.

After spending tens of billions of dollars on Arena Pharmaceuticals, Biohaven Pharma, Global Blood Therapeutics and, most recently, Seagen, “[w]e need to catch our breath and make sure that we execute well on those [companies] that we have right now,” Bourla explained at the conference.

Bourla said he didn’t foresee the company completing any “sizeable” M&A deals at the moment out of a desire to avoid disrupting Pfizer’s current commercial, research and manufacturing operations.

It’s a similar story over at AstraZeneca, where the British pharma’s helmsman, Pascal Soriot, recently said the company would ease up on technology platform deals in the coming months.

“I think we have acquired and built most of what we need for now and we need to execute on what we’ve got,” Soriot said on a recent earnings call. “But it doesn’t mean, of course, BD will come down to zero.”