Healthcare Market Update | Q4 2025

Latest market trends, valuation levels, and deals

The fourth quarter of 2025 shows that the German healthcare M&A market remains highly active and continues to evolve.

We are pleased to share the latest edition of our Healthcare Market Update for Q4 2025. In this issue, we highlight key industry developments, current valuation dynamics and selected transactions shaping the healthcare sector.

By the end of 2025, one thing had become clear to us: German healthcare M&A is very much alive - and evolving. While headlines continued to focus on cost pressure, staffing shortages and regulatory friction, deal activity told a more optimistic story.

Transaction momentum accelerated, and investment strategies became clearer and more pragmatic. Scale, operational resilience and buy-and-build capabilities emerged as defining success factors across several segments, ranging from pharma CDMOs to medical aids and homecare. With strong momentum carrying into the coming months, the market is shifting from opportunistic deals toward deliberate platform building and consolidation.

Much of this momentum can be traced back to developments in late 2025. The gradual clarification of the hospital reform, renewed debates around the future set-up of the medical aids market and ongoing vulnerabilities in pharmaceutical supply chains all point in the same direction: scale is no longer optional. Size brings negotiating power, operational resilience and the ability to absorb regulatory complexity. Add automation and digitalization into the mix, and suddenly previously “boring” healthcare niches look strategically attractive again.

This is in line with what we experienced at Oaklins. In Q4 2025 alone, we closed more than 10 healthcare deals. Capacity expansions in pharma, first-time platform investments and classic buy-and-build stories dominated our deal flow - less hype-driven and more execution-focused than in previous cycles.

The medical supply market deserves special mention. What was once seen as highly local and operationally complex has become a playground for buy-and-build strategies. Demographic tailwinds, stable demand and clear efficiency levers are drawing in financial investors, and platform acquisitions that have been recently completed are already triggering a steady stream of add-on deals in the coming months.

More broadly, recent processes have shown that the medical aids market remains wide open for consolidation. The key takeaway: regulation is manageable - if you have the right scale and systems in place. Looking ahead, we expect continued deal activity focused on building resilient, professionalized healthcare groups rather than chasing volume for its own sake.

In short: fewer deals are done just to do deals, and more transactions are driven by a clear industrial rationale.

We hope you enjoy reading the report and look forward to exchanging ideas with you soon.