Big pharma has shown little appetite for large-scale M&A in recent years, but has remained willing to pay sizeable sums in order to access highly coveted near-term revenue drivers via bolt-on acquisitions. Companies with desirable on-market assets early in their lifecycle and/or those with late-stage drug candidates with significant peak sales potential have attracted considerable takeover interest, often resulting in high-premium deals. In this article, we take a look at five multibillion-dollar, product-driven M&A deals which at the time of signing were regarded as high priced. We have assessed the current fair value of these deals using analyst consensus forecasts (accessed in November 2017) and best estimates of profitability and deal structures (Table 1).