The past week has seen another major M&A deal for the year and it’s not even the end of January.

Today, it has been announced that Sanofi is to acquire the nanobody platform company Ablynx in a deal worth almost €4 billion. Ablynx will bring a pipeline of over 45 candidates, 8 of which are in clinical development and one of which, caplacizumab is filed in Europe for acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenia purpura. Novo Nordisk were keen to purchase Ablynx a couple of weeks ago, bidding around €2.6 billion for the company, but lost out to Sanofi, which has only just announced its $11.6 billion acquisition of haematology company Bioverativ (see last week’s round up).

Novartis has signed a $170 million licensing deal with Spark Therapeutics to develop and commercialise the newly US FDA-approved gene therapy Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-ryzl) outside the US. Spark will continue to manage the European approval process for this pioneering therapy for the rare eye disease Leber congenital amaurosis, and will receive a $105 million upfront fee from Novartis.

And finally, Biogen has signed a potential $217 million deal (including a $10 million upfront payment) to acquire KPT-350 and other undisclosed assets from Karyopharm. KPT-350 is an inhibitor of XPO1, which mediates the nuclear export of multiple proteins. The small-molecule compound has shown potential in preclinical studies to treat both neurological and inflammatory conditions, and is ready for filing of an investigational new drug application.