Best Pharma Services & Pharmacy M&A Advisors: CDMO, CRO, Specialty Rx 2026

Best Pharma Services & Pharmacy M&A Advisors: CDMO, CRO, Specialty Rx 2026

Last updated: September 2026 · Last verified: September 2026

TL;DR. "Pharma services and pharmacy M&A" is three markets sharing one keyword, the Three-Lane Pharma Split: CDMOs, CROs and outsourced services price on capacity, backlog and inspection history; pharmacies price on reimbursement durability; distributors price on licences and working capital. The gate that spans all three is the Licence-Transfer Ladder: a DEA registration is not assignable without DEA's written consent and terminates when the registrant discontinues business (21 CFR 1301.52), so the buyer registers each location itself and the closing calendar is set by permits, not by diligence. Ranked on dated 2024-26 adviser-of-record evidence: Tier 1, Bourne Partners (five 2026 credits), Provident Healthcare Partners and The Braff Group (dated infusion and clinical-site closes); Tier 2, Stout, Fairmount Partners and Houlihan Lokey; Tier 3, Raymond James (the Guardian Pharmacy IPO and follow-on), Stifel and Harris Williams, the hub's standout CDMO franchise with no 2024-26 tombstone I could verify. The largest pharmacy deal of 2025, Walgreens Boots Alliance to Sycamore at $11.45 per share plus a divested-asset right, closed August 28, 2025 (WBA 8-K); the largest announced pharmacy deal of 2026 I could find, a Warburg Pincus-led group's agreement to buy PANTHERx Rare, reported by the Wall Street Journal at more than $7 billion, a figure not in the release, was announced July 13, 2026 and is pending. I run Peony, the data room 6,800+ teams use for processes like these; we are not an adviser.

Why is "pharma services and pharmacy M&A" three markets rather than one?

Because a CDMO, a specialty pharmacy and a drug wholesaler are bought by different people, priced on different cash flows and closed through different licences, and the healthcare banks that claim all three rarely publish a dated close in any of them. I'm Sean Yu, co-founder of Peony, a data room company. I have built and watched thousands of data rooms across my career — about 1,000 of those when I was an investor at two funds with a combined $6.3 billion in AUM, and the rest across the 6,800+ teams Peony serves today, where the founders we work with have raised over $18 billion to date. This guide is for the owner of a CDMO, CRO, clinical-site network or bioanalytical lab (the products side), the owner of a specialty, infusion, compounding, long-term-care or independent pharmacy (the services side), and, in one section, the owner of a wholesaler, 3PL or medical-supply distributor (the bridge lane).

A pharma services or pharmacy M&A advisor is an investment bank or sell-side boutique that runs the sale, recapitalization or capital raise of one of those businesses on the owner's behalf: positioning the backlog or the payer book, building the buyer list of sponsors, PBM-integrated strategics and health systems, and running the licence calendar that in this sector usually sets the closing date. This post sits under the best M&A advisors hub, deepens the one-section CRO/CDMO treatment in our best healthcare M&A advisors guide, and mirrors the behavioral health, automotive and logistics spokes. Search demand for these queries has been landing on our Boston and Charlotte city guides because no dedicated page existed; this is that page.

I built the bench on one standard, the Adviser-of-Record Ledger: a firm earns a rank only if I could read its role in a primary document dated 2024-26, an SEC filing, a counterparty's press release, or the firm's own news page with the adviser-of-record sentence stated. Where the evidence is undated, a title only, or a reputation carried from our hub, the profile says so.

The 2026 backdrop is strong at the top and unquantified in the middle. PwC's mid-year 2026 outlook says "PLS deal value surpassed $65B in the first quarter of 2026, marking the strongest quarter since 2020," that "the buyer landscape is broadening across all PLS subsectors with private equity becoming more active," that "private equity seeks durability in specialty pharma and life sciences services," and that "Carve-outs in life sciences services and tools are also creating new platforms in CDMO, CRO, and bioprocessing that could fuel additional bolt-on activity in the second half of 2026" (PwC, Pharmaceutical and life sciences: US Deals 2026 midyear outlook). That $65 billion is all pharma and life sciences, mostly biopharma; PwC publishes no pharma-services deal count or multiple, and neither does anyone else I could open, which is the honest starting point for the pricing section below.

How does the Licence-Transfer Ladder decide whether you sell assets or stock, and when you close?

By counting the licences that cannot move with the business, because every rung that has to be re-issued to the buyer either pushes you toward an asset deal with a pre-close licensing period or toward a stock deal that keeps the registrant alive. The Licence-Transfer Ladder is Peony's frame, not a regulator's; every rung below is quoted from the primary source, read September 14-16, 2026.

What exactly happens to the DEA registration at closing?

The buyer holds its own registration first, and the seller's controlled substances and records cross over on one day under 1301.52(d) and (e). The regulation's own word for the buyer is "registrant-transferee," and that word carries the sequence: the buyer obtains its DEA registration for the location; the seller submits, "at least 14 days in advance of the date of the proposed transfer," to the Special Agent in Charge, both parties' names, addresses and registration numbers, whether activities continue at the same location, any Schedule I or II quota, and "The date on which the transfer of controlled substances will occur"; on that date "a complete inventory of all controlled substances being transferred shall be taken in accordance with § 1304.11," serving as the seller's final inventory and the buyer's initial one, with Schedule I and II transfers on order forms under part 1305 (DEA Form 222); and the seller's controlled-substance records pass to the buyer, with "Responsibility for the accuracy of records prior to the date of transfer" remaining with the seller and "custody and maintenance" with the buyer. In a stock deal none of that is needed for the DEA rung: the registrant survives, and a name or address change is a modification under 21 CFR 1301.51, for which "No fee shall be required" and which yields "a new certificate of registration (DEA Form 223)." Be precise about what the rule says: not that a registration can never be transferred, but not without DEA-designated conditions and written consent, and in practice the buyer registers itself. Confirm every step with regulatory counsel.

Does the FDA have to approve the sale of a CDMO?

No. Part 207 is a registration-and-listing regime, not an approval gate: the seller updates its registration within 30 calendar days of "Closing or selling an establishment" (207.29(a)(1)), the new owner registers the establishment within 5 calendar days of beginning to manufacture there (207.21(a)), and both file the annual update "during the period beginning on October 1 and ending December 31 of each calendar year" (207.29(b)(1)). Registration is per establishment, though under common ownership "the parent, subsidiary, or affiliate company may submit registration information for all establishments" (207.17(a)), and "Private label distributors who do not also manufacture, repack, relabel, or salvage drugs are not required to register" (207.17(b)). What actually moves a CDMO buyer is the site's inspection history, Form 483 observations and any warning letter, a diligence item rather than a licence. For sterile compounders the standards a buyer will diligence are USP 797, which "Becomes Official" on November 1, 2023 per USP's own updates page, and USP 800, official since December 1, 2019 and "compendially applicable" from November 1, 2023 (USP 800 page); both are enforced through state boards of pharmacy, FDA's 503A and 503B regimes and accreditors, not as federal statutes in their own right.

The scoring frame, ours and not a statute: count the non-transferable licences between signing and close, per location. A three-site infusion pharmacy that also wholesales in California carries three pharmacy permits, three DEA registrations and a wholesaler licence, seven rungs to re-issue in an asset deal; the same business sold as stock carries one 30-day ownership report per permit and no-fee DEA modifications, and the buyer's counsel will price the liabilities that come with the entity instead. Neither answer is free; the point is to decide it with regulatory and tax counsel before the letter of intent, because the structure sets the closing date.

Which advisers actually closed the pharma services and pharmacy deals on the tape, 2024-26?

One Charlotte specialist on the products side, two sell-side boutiques on the pharmacy side, and the bulge banks on the three deals large enough to file. The ledger below is every 2024-26 transaction in these lanes where I could read the adviser's role in a primary document, newest first.

Bottom line: fifteen entries, and the mid-market adviser-of-record evidence in these lanes comes from five firms: Bourne Partners on five 2026 pharma-services deals, four of them buy-side; Provident and Braff on two dated sell-side credits each; Stout and Fairmount on the January 2026 clinical-trial-services merger and Stout on the July 2026 CAI recapitalization. The bulge names appear only on the three transactions big enough to file or to issue a full release, and PANTHERx Rare, reported by the Wall Street Journal at more than $7 billion, a figure not in the release and not verified here, was still pending on September 16, 2026.

Most pharma-services and pharmacy deals name no adviser at all, and the ones that do often name one side and no price: Asembia and PANTHERx name their banks and no number, the IV Solutions release names Braff and the buyer's sponsor and nothing else, and Bourne's Provepharm sale to A.forall, a Riverside Company portfolio company, carries the adviser-of-record sentence and no date on the page I read, so it sits outside the ledger. A list that says a bank "advised on" a pharmacy or CDMO deal without a filing, a release or a dated news page is asserting, not reporting.

Who are the 9 pharma services and pharmacy M&A advisors on this bench, and how are they ranked?

By dated adviser-of-record evidence first and by relevance to an owner-seller second. A filed or released credit outranks a firm's own dated news page, which outranks an undated tombstone title, which outranks a reputation carried from our hub; repeat credits in the lane outrank a single credit at platform scale; an M&A mandate outranks an underwriting credit; and among firms with comparable evidence, the one whose credits sit in your sub-lane wins. That rule puts Bourne first on volume of dated 2026 credits even though four of its five are buy-side, Provident above Braff because its two credits are dated to the day and span the pharmacy and distribution lanes with the broker-dealer chain stated on its site, and Harris Williams, the franchise the whole Street names first, ninth, because I could not find one 2024-26 pharma-services close to read.

1. Bourne Partners: the only firm with a datable 2026 pharma-services tape

Bourne Partners, "U.S. Headquarters 550 South Caldwell Street, Suite 900, Charlotte, NC," with a London office at 46 Bedford Row, describes itself as "a leading investment banking firm focused on healthcare and pharmaceuticals" with "over 25 years of proven success," specializing "in the pharma, pharma services, and healthcare services sectors." Its pharma-services page is headed, in its own capitals, "PHARMA SERVICES M&A ADVISORY: CDMOS, CROS & OUTSOURCED PROVIDERS," and names James West and Jake Curtis, promoted to Director in Pharma Services; Jeremy Johnson is Head of Investment Banking and Carson Riley Managing Director and Head of Pharma Investment Banking, and the firm's NICA 2026 conference brief shows its healthcare-services side follows infusion providers. Registration: Bourne Partners Securities, LLC, SEC broker-dealer file 8-66421, active, FINRA approval date August 16, 2004, with a BrokerCheck link in the site footer. The five ledger credits are the case: buy-side to JLL Partners with Stifel on CAI (closed July 1, 2026), exclusive to SteriMax on Andone (closed June 30, 2026), exclusive to Iterative Health on the NextStage cardiology sites (May 14, 2026), exclusive sell-side to QuartzBio on Eir Partners' controlling investment (May 13, 2026) and adviser to PAI Pharma and Olympus Partners on Nivagen (January 6, 2026), a Greenville oral-liquids manufacturer buying a Sacramento sterile-injectables plant. Its research desk publishes undated 2026 pages on compounding, infusion and CDMOs, the last with John Chiminski, the former Chairman and CEO of Catalent, as Senior Advisor. Two honest notes: Bourne has no pharmacy sector page, so it belongs in the products and services lane rather than the retail or specialty pharmacy lane, and four of its five 2026 credits are for the buyer, which means the firm across the table from you may be the one you were about to hire. Verdict: first on evidence, the only mid-market firm whose 2026 pharma-services tape you can read deal by deal on its own site, and the first call for a CDMO, clinical-services or sterile-manufacturing seller; ask which side it sat on last time your likely buyer transacted.

2. Provident Healthcare Partners: the pharmacy and infusion sell-side call

Provident Healthcare Partners, Boston, is the founder-owned, sell-side-focused specialist our healthcare hub profiles across physician practice management, behavioral health, infusion and outsourced pharma services. For this lane the live evidence is a transactions-page sector filter carrying "Specialty Pharmacy & Infusion" and "Products & Distribution," and two dated releases. On September 9, 2025 Provident announced "its role as exclusive financial advisor to CPS Infusion ('CPS') in a transformative platform transaction with Seven Hills Capital," a Georgia infusion-services business led by founder and CEO Dr. Marcus Crawford, with "Provident's deal team ... led by Managing Directors Kevin Palamara and Scott Davis." On January 16, 2025 it announced it "has advised Acentus in the acquisition of substantially all of its assets by Henry Schein, Inc.," a national continuous-glucose-monitor supplier sold as an asset deal announced November 20, 2024, with Kevin Palamara leading. A November 2023 release title records an earlier infusion-and-pharmacy mandate, Nightingale Services with Honor Health Network, outside the ledger window. Registration, verbatim from the site footer: "Securities offered through PCF Capital Markets, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC"; the Provident brand itself returns nothing in the SEC's adviser-info database, so do not describe it as a broker-dealer. Verdict: the sell-side call for an infusion or specialty pharmacy owner, with named bankers and the cleanest published registration chain on the bench; its transaction tiles are images, so ask for the pharmacy deal list with dates rather than reading it off the site.

3. The Braff Group: sell-side only, and the crossover into clinical sites

The Braff Group, Pittsburgh, founded in 1998 by Dexter Braff, is "the leading health care mergers and acquisitions advisory firm specializing exclusively in behavioral health, home health, home care and hospice, health care staffing, outsourced pharma services, home medical equipment, home infusion and specialty Rx," in the words of its September 15, 2026 boilerplate; its August 2025 boilerplate reported "over 385 transactions." Two dated credits put it on this bench. On August 14, 2025 it announced that "The Braff Group served as the exclusive financial advisor for IV Solutions, LLC," a Wood Dale, Illinois clinical pharmacy and home-infusion provider sold to Singlepoint Healthcare, a DFW Capital Partners portfolio company, with Pat Clifford as the Managing Director who "headed up the deal team." On September 15, 2026 it announced that "The Braff Group served as the exclusive financial advisor for Community Clinical Research," an Austin inpatient-capable CNS research site describing itself as a "preferred research provider across most major CROs," on its partnership with PhaseWell Research of Nashville, a multisite clinical-research business. That second deal is the sub-lane where the pharmacy and pharma-services specialists overlap, the clinical-site network, which Bourne's Iterative Health credit also sits in. Registration: none; Braff is an M&A advisory firm with no broker-dealer record, which fits a sell-side practice built on asset sales. Verdict: the sell-side-only specialist for a home-infusion or specialty-Rx owner and now a proven adviser to research sites; its lane list is the widest on the bench and its dated pharmacy tape the shortest, so ask for the last five infusion and pharmacy closes with years.

4. Stout: the firm on the other side of the 2026 pharma-services deals

Stout appears as adviser of record on two opened 2026 pharma-services transactions, both times opposite a firm above it on this bench. It "acted as financial advisor to CAI," the Indianapolis life-sciences operational-readiness firm of "more than 700 professionals" whose recapitalization by JLL Partners closed July 1, 2026, with Bourne and Stifel advising the buyer; and it "served as financial advisor to SubjectWell and WindRose in the transaction" that merged SubjectWell with Berlin's Clariness on January 27, 2026, with Fairmount advising Clariness. Registration: Stout Capital, LLC, SEC broker-dealer file 8-65979, active, registered in Royal Oak, Michigan. I am not stating a headquarters city or ownership because I did not verify either. Verdict: the middle-market name a sponsor-backed clinical-services or operational-readiness business should have on its list, with one sell-side credit (CAI) and one for the sponsor-led side of a merger (SubjectWell and WindRose).

5. Fairmount Partners: the pharma outsourcing specialist that publishes the research

Fairmount Partners, 100 Four Falls Corporate Center, Suite 660, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, is an independent investment bank whose footer reads "Member FINRA and SIPC" and whose broker-dealer, Fairmount Partners LP, SEC file 8-67839, is active. Its claim to this lane is a research product as much as a tombstone: the "Pharmaceutical Outsourcing Monitor" "focuses on all aspects of outsourcing in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device sectors" and "is published by Michael Martorelli, a Director at Fairmount, who had a two-decade career as a research analyst covering a variety of healthcare companies"; the firm also publishes a life-sciences software update. The dated credit: "Fairmount Partners acted as financial advisor to Clariness" on its January 27, 2026 merger with SubjectWell, a WindRose Health Investors portfolio company since April 2024, forming a global patient-recruitment platform. A second, a sale of NorthEast BioLab, a bioanalytical lab, to Normec, was reported by citybiz in August 2025 and I did not open the article, so it is a hedge, not a credit. Our Philadelphia M&A advisors guide already names the firm. Verdict: the lower-middle-market call for a CRO-services, clinical-trial-technology or lab seller, and the one bench firm whose analyst reads your segment for a living.

6. Houlihan Lokey: platform-scale specialty-pharma services, from the buy side

Houlihan Lokey (Los Angeles; Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc., SEC file 8-35643, active) is the dominant middle-market healthcare adviser by deal count in our hub, with healthcare led by Mark Francis as Global Head and Michael Pisani as Co-Head of US Healthcare, and "deep pharma-services and restructuring capability." The one credit I could open in this lane is at the top of it: "Houlihan Lokey served as financial advisor ... to Peak Rock" on the Peak Rock Capital affiliate's acquisition of Asembia, completed July 2, 2026, a Florham Park, New Jersey business providing "end-to-end technology-enabled commercialization solutions to the specialty pharma industry" across hub services, specialty distribution, data, pharmacy software and group purchasing; BofA Securities was exclusive financial adviser to Asembia, and no price was disclosed. Houlihan Lokey's own transaction list carries long-term-care and hospice pharmacy names, Polaris Pharmacy Services and Enclara Healthcare, and European CDMO names, CordenPharma and Fabbrica Italiana Sintetici, with dates and roles per hl.com and not independently re-verified, because the site blocks every fetch I tried. Verdict: the bank a sponsor hires to buy a specialty-pharma services platform, and in my experience the bank most likely to sit across from a seller at platform scale; below that scale, ask for the pharmacy closes with dates the website will not show you.

7. Raymond James: the Guardian Pharmacy IPO and a 50% re-rating

Raymond James & Associates, Inc. (St. Petersburg, Florida; SEC broker-dealer file 8-10999, active) earns its place on two SEC-filed prospectuses rather than an M&A mandate. Guardian Pharmacy Services, a long-term-care and institutional pharmacy, priced its IPO on September 25, 2024: "8,000,000 Shares Class A Common Stock" at an "initial public offering price of $14.00," $112,000,000 gross, with "Raymond James & Associates, Inc. ... acting as representative of the underwriters" alongside Stephens Inc. and Truist Securities, and "$0.07 per share being paid to Raymond James & Associates, Inc. as a structuring fee." Eight months later, on May 22, 2025, the same three banks priced a 7,500,000-share follow-on at "$21.00 / $157,500,000.00." The prospectus describes an institutional pharmacy market "currently served by Guardian, two national pharmacy services providers" and others; I am not naming the two nationals because the fragment I read is cut. Verdict: capital-markets access for a scaled pharmacy platform, verified in the only place it can be, the SEC's own filings; not a sell-side boutique, and I found no Raymond James M&A tombstone in the lane, so a $30 million pharmacy is not its client.

8. Stifel: a 2026 co-advisory credit, and nothing in pharmacy

Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated (St. Louis; SEC file 8-1447, active) is on the bench for one sentence: "Bourne Partners and Stifel acted as financial advisors to JLL Partners" on the CAI recapitalization that closed July 1, 2026. It is a co-advisory, buy-side credit shared with the firm ranked first, and I found no Stifel pharmacy tombstone. Verdict: a real 2026 pharma-services credit, ranked where a single shared buy-side credit belongs; do not hire it as a pharma-services specialist on this evidence.

9. Harris Williams: the franchise everyone names and the tape nobody can read

Harris Williams (Richmond, Virginia; SEC broker-dealer file 8-53380, active) is, per our healthcare hub, the "standout pharma-services / contract-manufacturing (CDMO / CRO) franchise serving private-equity sponsors," a PNC Financial Services subsidiary operating as an independent M&A brand, with its healthcare and life-sciences practice co-led by Cheairs Porter and Geoff Smith. The hub itself notes that "its most recent publicly verifiable healthcare deals skew older," and this pass confirmed it: a news-index search for Harris Williams with CDMO, pharma services and clinical research returned zero items for 2024-26, and no dated adviser-of-record credit in the lane could be opened. I am not re-profiling the firm here; the hub does that. Verdict: ninth on the ledger, first on reputation, and both statements are true; for a sponsor-owned CDMO the firm belongs on the shortlist, and the first meeting should produce three dated pharma-services closes that the internet does not.

How do I check whether a pharma services or pharmacy M&A adviser is FINRA-registered, and does it matter?

Search the broker-dealer named in the firm's footer, not the brand on the door, and expect the two pharmacy sell-side specialists to return either nothing or a different name. I ran the bench through the SEC's adviser-info firm search, which returns both investment-adviser and broker-dealer records, on September 16, 2026:

The pattern is the market's normal shape, not a warning: most lower-middle-market pharmacy sales are asset sales, and many intermediaries operate under the federal M&A-broker exemption. It stops being academic the moment the deal includes rollover equity into a sponsor platform's holding company, a securities transaction, or when a sponsor's own adviser is a firm you were considering hiring; in 2026 Bourne, Stout, Stifel and Houlihan Lokey all appeared on the buy side of a pharma-services deal. Ask, in writing, which registered entity will receive the success fee, which side of the table the firm sat on in its last three deals in your lane, and what it has been paid by your likely buyers in the past two years.

Who did we leave off, and why?

Every firm below is real; what is missing is a 2024-26 pharma-services or pharmacy credit I could read. Jefferies (SEC file 8-15074) runs one of the highest-volume healthcare franchises anywhere per our hub, and I found no pharma-services or pharmacy tombstone in the window. William Blair (8-2698) has a real historical CDMO tape, Ritedose to Novo Holdings, Lykan Bioscience to RoslinCT and the Bristol Myers Squibb East Syracuse facility to LOTTE, but every one of those pre-dates 2023 per the firm's own indexed transaction titles, which I did not open. Lincoln International (8-49671) and Capstone Partners (8-66572) established no lane credit; Capstone's site search for pharma services returned behavioral-health, marketing-services and pet-sector updates. Cain Brothers, now inside KeyBanc Capital Markets with its standalone record inactive, covers pharma services per the hub, with no dated deal found; VERTESS lists pharmacy among its lanes in the hub with no pharmacy tombstone found. Hayslip & Zost, the independent-pharmacy brokerage name that comes up in owner forums, returned zero news items and I did not open its site, so I could not verify a single dated, named transaction; that is unverifiable, not fake. RxOwnership is McKesson's ownership-transition program, not an adviser; it is what your wholesaler will offer, it is not sell-side advice, and I make no claim about its terms. Bloom Burton & Co., Toronto, was exclusive adviser to Andone and is a Canadian dealer outside the SEC database; Stephens Inc. and Truist Securities co-managed both Guardian Pharmacy offerings with no pharmacy M&A credit found. And the bulge names on the ledger, Centerview, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and BofA Securities, are advisers of record on three transactions and specialists in none of these lanes at the size this guide's readers sell at.

What are pharma services and pharmacy companies selling for in 2026, and what does a buyer re-underwrite?

Nobody publishes a verified 2025-26 EBITDA-multiple dataset for private pharma-services or pharmacy companies, so the honest pricing section is a structure, not a table. The one checkable benchmark is the hub's: Novo Holdings' roughly $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent, valued at about 22.9x EBITDA, a 2024 deal, announced in February and completed in December 2024, for a scaled, well-contracted CDMO far above the middle market. The one filed pharmacy data point is a public re-rating rather than a multiple: Guardian Pharmacy Services priced at $14.00 on September 25, 2024 and at $21.00 on May 22, 2025, a 50% move in eight months for a long-term-care pharmacy platform. Any range you are quoted for your lane is an adviser's opinion or a stale edition; ask which closed deals it comes from.

What a buyer actually does is re-underwrite three cash flows, and the dated rules behind each are the citable part. Call it the Reimbursement Re-Underwriting Stack, Peony's frame:

What did the January 1, 2024 point-of-sale price-concession rule do to pharmacy earnings?

It moved the Part D clawbacks the industry called DIR fees onto the claim, and it did not abolish them. CMS's contract-year 2023 final rule (87 FR 27704, May 9, 2022) redefined "negotiated price" at 42 CFR 423.100 as the price the Part D sponsor and the network pharmacy "have negotiated as the lowest possible reimbursement such network entity will receive, in total, for a particular drug," which "Includes all price concessions (as defined in this section) from network pharmacies" and "Includes any dispensing fees," with "price concession" defined to include "Discounts, chargebacks, rebates, cash discounts, free goods contingent on a purchase agreement, coupons, free or reduced-price services, and goods in kind." The rule's own dates line makes the definition "effective January 1, 2024" and "applicable beginning on January 1, 2024." For a buyer, that splits your income statement in two: pre-2024 EBITDA carries retroactive clawback accruals and post-2024 EBITDA carries lower point-of-sale reimbursement and none, so the two are not comparable and a quality-of-earnings review rebuilds the Part D book claim by claim. I am not attaching a dollar figure to the 2024 transition because no dated primary source states one; the instruction is simpler: do not accept a valuation built on a 2023 base year, and put the 2024 and 2025 remittance data by plan in the room.

Does 340B contract-pharmacy revenue belong to the pharmacy?

No; it belongs to the covered entity, and your line is a contract. Under 42 U.S.C. 256b(a)(1) the manufacturer must "offer each covered entity covered outpatient drugs for purchase at or below the applicable ceiling price"; the covered entity "shall not resell or otherwise transfer the drug to a person who is not a patient of the entity" (256b(a)(5)(B)); it may not bill Medicaid for a drug already subject to a state rebate (256b(a)(5)(A)(i)); and it "shall permit the Secretary and the manufacturer ... to audit" (256b(a)(5)(C)). The statute never mentions contract pharmacies; they rest on HRSA's March 5, 2010 final notice (75 FR 10272) on "the utilization of multiple contract pharmacies and suggested contract pharmacy provisions." The market: Drug Channels Institute counted "32,069 unique locations acting as 340B contract pharmacies" as of mid-2025, "nearly 60% of the entire U.S. pharmacy industry," holding "229,531 contractual relationships with 12,298 340B covered entities," and "The 2025 figure marks the second consecutive year since 2010 in which the number of pharmacy locations decreased," a decline DCI attributes to "the ongoing shakeout in the retail pharmacy industry"; the five largest participants are "Cigna (via Express Scripts), CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group (via Optum Rx), Walgreens, and Walmart" (DCI, June 10, 2025). A buyer reads each covered-entity agreement for its assignment and change-of-control clause, and prices manufacturer contract-pharmacy restrictions and the related litigation as ongoing rather than settled; I am not stating a percentage of any pharmacy's revenue at risk, because no source I opened does.

What does the 2026 PBM reform law change, and when?

Part D delinking and pharmacy tracking from plan year 2028, per law-firm summaries; I did not open the enacted text and cite no section. Mintz's February 6, 2026 summary states that "On February 3, 2026, Congress passed – and the President signed – the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026," which "will significantly reshape PBM operations across the commercial market and Medicare Part D beginning in 2028–2029": "PBMs that act on behalf of PDP Sponsors may receive compensation related to Part D drug utilization only in the form of a bona fide service fee (BFSF)," and "Beginning with plan year 2028, CMS will identify, track, and report on ... 'essential retail pharmacies,'" with "100% Pass-Through of Rebates" for commercial group health plans "taking effect in 2028-2029" (Mintz). Bourne Partners' 2026 NICA conference brief reads it as "a clear positive for independent infusion providers," expecting it "to chip away at the structural competitive advantages that payer-owned infusion providers and specialty pharmacies have enjoyed for years," with "most providers at the NICA Conference reporting patient volume growth of over 10% annually." For a seller in 2026 the law is a diligence theme and a story, not cash flow: nothing in it is in force yet.

What does BIOSECURE do to a CDMO or CRO sale in 2026?

It puts supply-chain provenance on the buyer's list before any prohibition exists. The BIOSECURE provisions were enacted as section 851 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, Public Law 119-60, which became law on December 18, 2025 (enrolled text). Read the enacted text before repeating what the 2024 standalone bill said: it contains no company name and never uses the word "BIOSECURE." Section 851(a) provides that "The head of an executive agency may not (1) procure or obtain any biotechnology equipment or service produced or provided by a biotechnology company of concern; or (2) enter into a contract, or extend or renew a contract, with any entity that (A) uses" such equipment or services acquired after the effective date, with a parallel bar on loan and grant funds in (b). A "biotechnology company of concern" is an entity involved in biotechnology equipment or services that "is identified in the annual list published in the Federal Register by the Department of Defense of Chinese military companies operating in the United States pursuant to section 1260H" of the FY2021 NDAA, or that OMB designates through the process in (f)(2)(B), plus subsidiaries, parents and successors. The clock, derived from the statute: OMB publishes its list "Not later than one year after the date of the enactment," so by December 18, 2026; guidance follows within 180 days of the list; the FAR is revised within one year of the guidance; the prohibitions take effect 60 days after that revision for 1260H-listed companies and 90 days for the others; and under (c)(3)(A), for five years after the FAR revision that names a company, the prohibitions "shall not apply to biotechnology equipment or services produced or provided under a contract or agreement, including previously negotiated contract options, entered into before the applicable effective date." As of September 2026, therefore, no procurement prohibition is in force. What a CDMO or CRO buyer diligences now is exposure: which suppliers, instruments and subcontractors could be named, what share of revenue rides on federal contracts or grants, and which existing contracts would sit inside the five-year exclusion. Reports that a court has enjoined a specific company's 1260H designation circulated in early September 2026; I could not verify them and state nothing about them.

What are compounding pharmacies and infusion providers worth, and why is the answer a structure?

Because the only numbers in print are market sizes, not multiples. Bourne Partners' undated 2026 consumer and compounding research estimates "Americans spend roughly $4.5 to $5.3 billion annually on personalized drug formulations," believes "the marketplace for 503B compounders (outsourcing facilities) is growing in the high single digits, anchored by hospital demand for ready-to-use sterile injectables and persistent drug shortages," observes that "Telehealth vendors have been acquiring pharmacy capacity to internalize supply and defend margins, while private equity investors have been rolling-up fragmented operators," and flags that "potential FDA reclassification of twelve peptides could add upwards of $1 billion of incremental revenue for compounders over time, even as the regulatory window for GLP-1 compounding tightens." Specialty is the largest pool, "an estimated $265 billion in specialty pharmaceuticals" dispensed in 2024, "an 8.0% increase," with specialty's share of total pharmacy dispensing revenue up "from 24% to about 39%" since 2013 (DCI, Top 15 Specialty Pharmacies of 2024). Underneath is the Three-Lane Pharma Split: a CDMO is priced on capacity, contracted backlog, customer concentration and its inspection file; a pharmacy on the durability of its reimbursement after the point-of-sale rule, its PBM contracts and its 340B agreements; a distributor on licences and working capital. The multiple is the output of that re-underwriting, and the input is the file you put in the room.

Who is buying specialty pharmacies, infusion providers and CDMOs in 2026?

Sponsors on the tape, PBM-integrated strategics and health systems on the structure. DCI's 2024 count has "the three largest specialty pharmacies," which "are all owned by vertically integrated organizations that also operate PBMs," generating "two-thirds of all prescription revenues from pharmacy-dispensed specialty drugs," with "Specialty dispensing accounted for about one-third of PBMs' total gross profits in 2024," "nearly 1,900 dispensing locations with specialty pharmacy accreditation" and "Hospitals and health systems operate 27% of accredited specialty pharmacies—up from 15% in 2017"; DCI's own summary is that "Independent specialty pharmacies face headwinds." That is the structural buyer map for an independent: the three integrated giants that already hold two-thirds of the revenue, and the health systems that run more than a quarter of accredited sites. The 2025-26 deal map is sponsors: Sycamore Partners on Walgreens Boots Alliance (closed August 28, 2025); Seven Hills Capital on CPS Infusion (announced September 9, 2025); DFW Capital Partners' Singlepoint Healthcare on IV Solutions (August 2025); Peak Rock Capital on Asembia (closed July 2, 2026); a Warburg Pincus-led group with an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority minority on PANTHERx Rare (announced July 13, 2026, pending, with Nautic Partners and management remaining "significant shareholders"); and on the services side JLL Partners on CAI, Olympus Partners' PAI Pharma on Nivagen and Eir Partners on QuartzBio, all 2026. PwC's line on the mix: "private equity and strategic buyers are increasingly competing for assets in the space," with "Pricing headwinds from IRA, Most Favored Nation (MFN) ramifications, tariffs, and US-China trade policy uncertainty" that "influenced negotiations but did not slow deal activity." For a $5 million-EBITDA infusion pharmacy, run the hub's Buyer-Universe Depth Test against all three columns, and expect the sponsor column to bid first.

Who are the best healthcare distribution M&A advisors?

Honestly, a thin bench: no mid-market firm carries a repeat, dated distribution tombstone I could read, so this lane gets one section and a pointer. The verified credits are Provident Healthcare Partners on Acentus, a national continuous-glucose-monitor supplier that sold substantially all of its assets to Henry Schein, announced November 20, 2024 and closed January 16, 2025, with Kevin Palamara leading, and a "Products & Distribution" filter on its transactions page; BofA Securities for the seller and Houlihan Lokey for Peak Rock on Asembia, whose lines include "specialty distribution" and group purchasing, closed July 2, 2026; and Centerview Partners and Morgan Stanley for Walgreens Boots Alliance, the retail-and-distribution transaction of 2025. The gate is rung 3 of the ladder: in California the wholesaler and third-party-logistics licences "shall be renewed annually and shall not be transferable" under B&P § 4201(g) and (h), the application must disclose "each person beneficially interested therein or any person with management or control over the license" (§ 4201(a)), and a change in beneficial ownership is reported within 30 days (§ 4201(j)); a warehouse that only stores controlled substances for a registrant is carved out of DEA's per-location registration rule under 21 CFR 1301.12(b)(1), but a warehouse that distributes from stock is not. What a distribution buyer pulls, and how the DSCSA and licence file is built, is in our data room for pharmaceutical distribution guide.

What do buyers diligence in a pharmacy or CDMO sale, and what should the data room look like when the bidders are competitors?

The licence file first, then the reimbursement file, then a room built for the fact that your best buyers compete with you for pharmacists, sites and customers. The items with a primary source behind them: DEA readiness, the buyer's registration per location (1301.12(a)), the 14-day notice and closing-day inventory plan (1301.52(d)-(e)), and the records that pass to the buyer at closing (1301.52(e)(2)); state permits, the change-of-ownership or new-application path per state, with California's 30-day beneficial-ownership report as the model (B&P § 4201(j)); the FDA establishment file for any manufacturing or 503B site, its Part 207 registration history and the inspection history a buyer prices; USP 797 and 800 compliance evidence for sterile and hazardous-drug compounding; Part D remittance data by plan for 2024 and 2025, so the buyer sees the point-of-sale negotiated price working rather than a 2023 base year; PBM network agreements and covered-entity 340B agreements with their assignment and change-of-control clauses tabbed; and, for a CDMO or CRO, a BIOSECURE exposure map of suppliers, equipment and federal-contract revenue. Practitioner items with no published source, ours rather than a statistic: customer concentration and backlog coverage for a CDMO, referral-source concentration for an infusion pharmacy, pharmacist-in-charge continuity, and controlled-substance diversion controls. The quality of earnings and our sell-side due diligence guide sit on top.

Then the room. For a $40 million infusion pharmacy running three sponsor platforms and one PBM-owned strategic, the build is:

• A separate data room per bidder on your own custom domain, with visitor groups walling the strategic off from the sponsors inside one process, so no party sees another's tranche, activity or Q&A.
• Staged disclosure: the teaser and payer-mix summary first; the remittance data by plan, the licence and inspection file and the normalisation schedule in the middle; the pharmacist roster, contracted rates by plan, covered-entity agreements and referral-source detail last, after a bid you believe.
• NDA gates before the room opens: Simple NDA on Business and up, a signed NDA on Data Room and up; one-click revoke on Business and up when a bidder drops; link expiry and password-protected links on every tier including Free.
• Per-viewer dynamic watermarks on every rendered page on the Data Room plan and up, so a forwarded rate sheet or DEA inventory traces to one reader; view-only, no-download access and screenshot protection from Business up.
• Page-level analytics showing which bidder spent an hour on the 2024 remittance file, the earliest honest read on who is real and who is preparing a retrade.
• Redaction on the Deal Team plan for remittance or dispensing schedules that still carry patient identifiers, plus auto-indexing, structured Q&A and the security layer.

Peony is not an M&A advisor and does not place deals; the firms above do that. We are the confidential room the process runs in: pick your advisor first, then stand up the room. Peony serves 6,800+ customers on exactly this layer, rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra. The Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually, the tier a sell-side process wants: dynamic watermarking, signed NDA, custom domain and per-file permissions, with unlimited free viewers. Business is $30 per admin per month billed annually and covers the teaser stage; Deal Team is $64 per admin per month billed annually and adds redaction and archive download; a Free tier with password links, expiry and analytics exists (pricing). The room is a document-handling control, not a regulatory-compliance opinion, which comes from counsel. The build is in our M&A data room playbook and how to write a CIM; the licensing, partnering and diligence rooms a pharma company runs outside a sale are in our pharma partnering data room and biotech data room guides.

What do pharma services and pharmacy M&A advisers charge?

A retainer plus a success fee, and not one firm on this bench publishes a fee percentage, searched September 16, 2026. The only filed fee data point in the lane is on the capital-markets side: Guardian Pharmacy's IPO prospectus discloses "$0.07 per share being paid to Raymond James & Associates, Inc. as a structuring fee" on top of the underwriting discount, on 8,000,000 shares at $14.00, which tells you what a structuring role is worth to a public issuer and nothing about a sell-side rate. Below that scale the conventions in our M&A advisor fees guide apply: a monthly retainer credited against a success fee that scales down with size, a stated minimum, a tail period and exclusivity, every term in writing. Three sector-specific terms to settle first: whether the fee base is enterprise value or cash at close net of rollover; whether the success fee is earned at signing or at the licence-gated closing that may sit weeks behind it; and what the bank has been paid by your likely buyers or their sponsors in the last two years, because the same mid-market firms sat on the buy side of four 2026 pharma-services deals on this ledger. The M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank guide covers where the roles separate.

So which pharma services or pharmacy M&A adviser should you hire?

The one whose dated evidence sits in your lane, because the three lanes do not share buyers, pricing or licences. A CDMO, CRO, clinical-site or lab owner should start with Bourne Partners for the only readable 2026 tape, Fairmount Partners for the lower middle market and the research desk that covers your segment, and Stout for the firm that was sell-side to CAI and advised the WindRose-led side of the Clariness merger; put Harris Williams on the list and make it show you three dated closes; expect Houlihan Lokey across the table if a sponsor bids at scale. An infusion, specialty or compounding pharmacy owner should start with Provident Healthcare Partners for the CPS Infusion platform credit and the named bankers, and The Braff Group for the sell-side-only IV Solutions credit; ask both which of their last five closes was a pharmacy and who bought it, and expect the bulge banks only if your business is PANTHERx-sized. A long-term-care or institutional pharmacy platform large enough to think about public markets has one filed precedent on this ledger, Guardian Pharmacy with Raymond James. A wholesaler or distributor has the thinnest bench of all; Provident's Acentus credit is the mid-market precedent, and the licence ladder is where the calendar lives. Whoever you hire, count the rungs before the letter of intent.

Related resources

• Best healthcare M&A advisors, the hub this spoke deepens, with the Harris Williams, Houlihan Lokey and Cain Brothers profiles and the Catalent benchmark.
• Sibling spokes: best behavioral health M&A advisors, best automotive M&A advisors and best logistics M&A advisors.
• City guides that catch this demand today: Boston, Charlotte, Philadelphia and Raleigh.
• Data rooms for this sector: pharma partnering data room, biotech data room guide, biotech M&A data room and data room for pharmaceutical distribution.
• Best M&A advisors, M&A advisor fees and M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank.
• M&A data room, how to write a CIM, quality of earnings and sell-side due diligence.
• Pricing and the M&A, due diligence and private equity solution pages.

Frequently asked questions

Who are the best pharma services M&A advisors?

On dated adviser-of-record evidence for 2024-26, Bourne Partners (Charlotte; Bourne Partners Securities, LLC, SEC broker-dealer file 8-66421) leads with five 2026 credits on its own news pages: buy-side to JLL Partners with Stifel on the CAI recapitalization (closed July 1, 2026), exclusive to SteriMax on Andone Pharmaceuticals (closed June 30, 2026), exclusive to Iterative Health on three NextStage cardiology research sites (May 14, 2026), exclusive sell-side to QuartzBio on its Eir Partners investment (May 13, 2026) and adviser to PAI Pharma and Olympus Partners on Nivagen (January 6, 2026). Stout (Stout Capital, LLC, SEC file 8-65979) sat across the table twice in 2026, sell-side to CAI and adviser to SubjectWell and WindRose on the Clariness merger; Fairmount Partners (West Conshohocken; SEC file 8-67839) advised Clariness on that January 27, 2026 merger and publishes the Pharmaceutical Outsourcing Monitor. Houlihan Lokey advised Peak Rock on its acquisition of Asembia (closed July 2, 2026). Harris Williams is the standout CDMO and CRO franchise in our healthcare hub, and I could verify no 2024-26 pharma-services tombstone for it, so it ranks on reputation rather than on this ledger. Ask every firm for three dated closes in your lane before you sign.

Who are the best pharmacy M&A advisors?

Two sell-side specialists carry dated pharmacy and infusion credits: Provident Healthcare Partners (Boston; securities offered through PCF Capital Markets, LLC per its site) was exclusive financial adviser to CPS Infusion on its platform transaction with Seven Hills Capital (announced September 9, 2025; deal team led by Managing Directors Kevin Palamara and Scott Davis), and The Braff Group (Pittsburgh; sell-side only) was exclusive financial adviser to IV Solutions, a clinical pharmacy and home infusion provider, on its sale to Singlepoint Healthcare (August 2025; Managing Director Pat Clifford). Raymond James took Guardian Pharmacy Services, a long-term-care pharmacy, public at $14.00 on September 25, 2024 as representative of the underwriters and priced its follow-on at $21.00 on May 22, 2025; that is capital-markets access for a scaled platform, not sell-side advice. At the top of the market the advisers of record are Centerview Partners and Morgan Stanley for Walgreens Boots Alliance (closed August 28, 2025), Centerview and Goldman Sachs for PANTHERx Rare and J.P. Morgan for Warburg Pincus (announced July 13, 2026, pending), and BofA Securities for Asembia; below several hundred million dollars those banks are the other side of the table. I could not verify a single dated, named transaction for any independent-pharmacy brokerage.

Can a DEA registration be transferred when a pharmacy is sold?

Not by assignment. Under 21 CFR 1301.52(a) a DEA registration terminates without further action when the registrant ceases legal existence, discontinues business or surrenders it, and under 1301.52(b) no registration or authority conferred by it shall be assigned or otherwise transferred except upon such conditions as the Administration may specifically designate and then only pursuant to written consent. In practice the buyer registers itself, one registration per location under 1301.12(a), before closing. The mechanics that make an asset deal work sit in 1301.52(d) and (e): the seller sends notice to the DEA Special Agent in Charge at least 14 days before the proposed transfer of controlled substances, naming the registrant-transferee, its registration number and the transfer date; on that date a complete inventory is taken under 1304.11 that serves as the seller's final inventory and the buyer's initial one; Schedule I and II transfers require DEA Form 222 order forms under part 1305; and the seller's controlled-substance records pass to the buyer, who takes custody while the seller stays responsible for their accuracy before the transfer date. In a stock deal the registrant survives and a name or address change is a no-fee modification under 1301.51 that yields a new DEA Form 223. Confirm the sequence with regulatory counsel; the rules are quoted from the eCFR as of September 14, 2026.

Who advises on CDMO and CRO sales?

In the middle market, Bourne Partners, whose pharma-services page is headed CDMOs, CROs and outsourced providers and whose 2026 tape includes PAI Pharma's acquisition of Nivagen, a sterile injectables manufacturer, and the Iterative Health clinical-research-site deal; Fairmount Partners, whose Pharmaceutical Outsourcing Monitor covers the segment and which advised Clariness on its merger with SubjectWell to form a global patient-recruitment platform; and Stout, sell-side to CAI, a 700-plus-professional life-sciences operational-readiness firm recapitalized by JLL Partners on July 1, 2026. Harris Williams runs the standout sponsor-side CDMO and CRO franchise in our healthcare hub, co-led by Cheairs Porter and Geoff Smith, with no 2024-26 tombstone I could verify; Houlihan Lokey's own transaction list carries European CDMO names such as CordenPharma and Fabbrica Italiana Sintetici, dates and roles per hl.com and not independently re-verified. The clinical-site-network sub-lane is where the pharmacy specialists cross over: The Braff Group was exclusive adviser to Community Clinical Research on its September 15, 2026 partnership with PhaseWell Research. At the top of the market, the reference deal is Novo Holdings' roughly $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent at about 22.9x EBITDA, completed in 2024.

Who are the best healthcare distribution M&A advisors?

The honest answer is that no mid-market firm carries a repeat, dated distribution tombstone I could verify, so the bench is thin and I say so. Provident Healthcare Partners advised Acentus, a national continuous-glucose-monitor supplier, on the sale of substantially all of its assets to Henry Schein, announced November 20, 2024 and closed January 16, 2025, and its transactions page carries a Products & Distribution sector filter. Asembia, whose lines include specialty distribution and group purchasing, sold to a Peak Rock Capital affiliate on July 2, 2026 with BofA Securities as exclusive sell-side adviser and Houlihan Lokey advising Peak Rock. Walgreens Boots Alliance's sale to Sycamore Partners, advised by Centerview Partners and Morgan Stanley, is the retail-and-distribution deal of 2025 and closed August 28, 2025. For a wholesaler or 3PL the licence rung is the gate: in California the wholesaler and third-party-logistics licences are expressly non-transferable under Business and Professions Code section 4201(g) and (h). Our data room for pharmaceutical distribution guide covers the DSCSA and licence file a buyer will ask for.

What do pharma services M&A advisors charge?

A retainer plus a success fee, and not one firm on this bench publishes a percentage, searched September 16, 2026. The only filed fee data point in the lane is on the capital-markets side: Guardian Pharmacy Services' IPO prospectus discloses $0.07 per share paid to Raymond James & Associates as a structuring fee on top of the underwriting discount, on an 8,000,000-share offering at $14.00. Below that scale the conventions in our M&A advisor fees guide apply: a monthly retainer credited against a success fee that scales down with size, a minimum fee, a tail period and exclusivity. Three sector-specific terms to settle in writing: whether the fee base is enterprise value or cash at close net of any rollover; whether the success fee is earned at signing or at the DEA and state-board closing that may sit weeks later; and what the bank has been paid by the buyer or its sponsor in the last two years, because in 2026 the same mid-market firms appear on both sides of pharma-services deals.

Should I sell my pharmacy or CDMO as an asset deal or a stock deal?

Count the licences that cannot move, then decide, because in this sector the ladder, not just tax, sets the structure. A pharmacy permit is non-transferable in California under Business and Professions Code section 4201(f), and most state boards treat the permit the same way and require a new application or a change-of-ownership filing on their own timelines; the DEA registration is not assignable without DEA's written consent under 21 CFR 1301.52(b), so the buyer registers each location itself; a wholesaler or 3PL licence is non-transferable in California under 4201(g) and (h); and for a CDMO the FDA establishment registration is per establishment under 21 CFR 207.17(a), with the new owner registering within five calendar days of beginning to manufacture under 207.21(a) and the seller updating within 30 days of closing or selling an establishment under 207.29(a). An asset deal means every rung is re-issued to the buyer before closing, which is cleaner on liabilities and slower on the calendar; a stock deal keeps the registrant alive, so the DEA change is a no-fee modification under 1301.51 and a California ownership change is a 30-day report under 4201(j), which is faster on licences and slower on the buyer's liability diligence. Run the count with regulatory and tax counsel before the letter of intent, not after.

What are pharma services and pharmacy companies selling for in 2026?

Nobody publishes a verified 2025-26 EBITDA-multiple dataset for private pharma-services or pharmacy companies, so the only checkable benchmark is the one in our healthcare hub: Novo Holdings' roughly $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent at about 22.9x EBITDA, a 2024 deal for a scaled, well-contracted CDMO that sits far above the middle market. The filed pharmacy data point is a public re-rating rather than a multiple: Guardian Pharmacy Services priced its IPO at $14.00 on September 25, 2024 and a follow-on at $21.00 on May 22, 2025, both with Raymond James as representative of the underwriters. Below that, a buyer prices structure: for a CDMO, capacity, contracted backlog, customer concentration and the site's inspection history; for a pharmacy, reimbursement durability after Part D price concessions moved to the point of sale on January 1, 2024, PBM network contracts that face delinking from plan year 2028 under the 2026 reform law, and 340B contract-pharmacy fees that belong to the covered entity's contract rather than to the pharmacy. Any range you are quoted for your lane is an adviser's opinion; ask which closed deals it comes from.

How did the 2024 Part D point-of-sale price-concession rule change what buyers pay for a pharmacy?

Since January 1, 2024, the Part D negotiated price at 42 CFR 423.100 must include all price concessions from network pharmacies at the point of sale (87 FR 27704, the CMS contract-year 2023 final rule of May 9, 2022), so the retroactive clawbacks the industry called DIR fees moved onto the claim rather than arriving months later. They were not abolished. For a buyer that changes the quality of the earnings: a 2024 or 2025 income statement shows lower point-of-sale reimbursement on Part D claims and none of the old clawback accruals, so a pharmacy's pre-2024 EBITDA and its post-2024 EBITDA are not comparable, and a quality-of-earnings review will rebuild the Part D book claim by claim to see what the negotiated price actually was. Do not accept a valuation built on a 2023 base year; put the 2024 and 2025 remittance data by plan in the room and let the buyer see the price definition working.

Does 340B contract-pharmacy revenue count in my pharmacy's valuation?

It counts as contract revenue, not as a discount you own, and that distinction is the whole diligence item. Under 42 U.S.C. 256b the ceiling price is offered to the covered entity, the hospital or federal grantee, which may not resell or transfer a 340B drug to anyone who is not its patient (256b(a)(5)(B)) and must permit manufacturer and HHS audits; contract pharmacies exist under HRSA's March 5, 2010 final notice (75 FR 10272), not under the statute. Your 340B line is therefore a services fee under a contract with the covered entity, and whether it survives your sale depends on that contract's assignment and change-of-control language. The market is large but shrinking in locations: Drug Channels Institute counted 32,069 unique contract-pharmacy locations as of mid-2025, nearly 60% of the U.S. pharmacy industry, holding 229,531 contractual relationships with 12,298 covered entities, with 2025 the second consecutive year since 2010 in which the number of locations fell. Put every covered-entity agreement in the room with its assignment clause tabbed, and expect a buyer to price manufacturer restrictions and litigation as ongoing rather than settled.

How does BIOSECURE affect selling a CDMO or CRO in 2026?

As buyer diligence, not yet as law in force. The BIOSECURE provisions were enacted as section 851 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, Public Law 119-60, signed December 18, 2025. The enrolled text names no company and never uses the word BIOSECURE; it bars executive agencies from procuring biotechnology equipment or services from a biotechnology company of concern and from contracting with entities that use such equipment or services, with the companies of concern defined by reference to the Defense Department's section 1260H list and an OMB process. The clock runs from the statute: OMB must publish its list within one year of enactment, guidance follows within 180 days, the Federal Acquisition Regulation is revised within a year of the guidance, and the prohibitions take effect 60 or 90 days after that revision, with contracts entered before the effective date excluded for five years. So as of September 2026 no procurement prohibition is in force, and what a CDMO or CRO buyer will diligence is exposure: which suppliers, equipment and subcontractors could be named, what share of revenue depends on federal contracts or grants, and whether existing contracts fall inside the five-year exclusion. Have that map built before the process starts.

Who is buying specialty pharmacies, infusion providers and CDMOs in 2026?

Sponsors on the 2025-26 tape, with PBM-integrated strategics and health systems holding the structural high ground in pharmacy. Drug Channels Institute's 2024 count has the three largest specialty pharmacies, all owned by vertically integrated organizations that also operate PBMs, generating two-thirds of all pharmacy-dispensed specialty revenue, with hospitals and health systems operating 27% of accredited specialty pharmacies, up from 15% in 2017, and the whole channel dispensing an estimated $265 billion in 2024, up 8.0%. The sponsor tape is the deal list: Sycamore Partners closed Walgreens Boots Alliance on August 28, 2025; Seven Hills Capital's platform transaction with CPS Infusion was announced September 9, 2025; DFW Capital Partners' Singlepoint Healthcare bought IV Solutions in August 2025; a Peak Rock Capital affiliate closed Asembia on July 2, 2026; and a Warburg Pincus-led group agreed on July 13, 2026 to buy a controlling interest in PANTHERx Rare from Nautic Partners, General Atlantic and The Vistria Group, pending as of September 16, 2026. On the services side JLL Partners recapitalized CAI, Olympus Partners' PAI Pharma bought Nivagen and Eir Partners took a controlling interest in QuartzBio. PwC's mid-2026 outlook says private equity is becoming more active across all pharma and life-sciences subsectors and that carve-outs are creating new platforms in CDMO, CRO and bioprocessing.

Is Bourne Partners or Harris Williams the better call for a CDMO or pharma services sale?

On evidence I can show you, Bourne Partners; on franchise reputation, Harris Williams, and you should make both prove it. Bourne's own news pages carry five 2026 pharma-services credits with the adviser-of-record sentence quoted, four of them buy-side sponsor work (JLL Partners on CAI with Stifel, SteriMax on Andone, Iterative Health on the NextStage sites, PAI Pharma and Olympus Partners on Nivagen) and one sell-side (QuartzBio to Eir Partners), which tells a seller that Bourne knows the sponsors who are buying and also that it advises them. Harris Williams runs the standout sponsor-side CDMO and CRO franchise in our healthcare hub, co-led by Cheairs Porter and Geoff Smith, is a PNC subsidiary operating as an independent brand, and had zero pharma-services or CDMO items in the news index this session; the hub itself notes its publicly verifiable healthcare deals skew older. Ask each for three dated closes in your sub-lane and for a written list of buyers it has advised in the last two years; the firm whose buy-side clients are your likely bidders has a conflict to manage as well as a rolodex to sell.

How do I check whether a pharma services or pharmacy M&A adviser is FINRA-registered?

Search the broker-dealer entity in the firm's footer, not the brand on the door, in the SEC's adviser-info database, and expect the pure M&A advisory firms to return nothing. Checked September 16, 2026: Bourne Partners Securities, LLC (SEC broker-dealer file 8-66421, FINRA approval date August 16, 2004), Fairmount Partners LP (8-67839), Stout Capital, LLC (8-65979), Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc. (8-35643), Harris Williams (8-53380), Raymond James & Associates, Inc. (8-10999) and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company (8-1447) are active. Provident Healthcare Partners returns nothing under its own name and states on its site that securities are offered through PCF Capital Markets, LLC, a FINRA and SIPC member. The Braff Group is an M&A advisory firm with no broker-dealer record, and Cain Brothers' standalone record is inactive because the business sits inside KeyBanc Capital Markets. That pattern is normal: most lower-middle-market pharmacy sales are asset sales and many intermediaries operate under the federal M&A-broker exemption, but the moment your deal includes rollover equity into a sponsor's holding company, a securities transaction, ask in writing which registered entity advises on that leg.

What should the data room look like when I sell a pharmacy or CDMO and the bidders are competitors?

One room per bidder, staged tranches and identity on every page, because the documents a competitor most wants are the ones the licence ladder forces you to produce: the DEA records that pass to the buyer at closing under 21 CFR 1301.52(e)(2), the FDA inspection file for each establishment, your PBM contracts and your covered-entity 340B agreements. For a $40 million infusion pharmacy running three sponsor platforms and one PBM-owned strategic, I would build a separate Peony data room per bidder so no party sees another's tranche, activity or Q&A; stage disclosure so the teaser and payer-mix summary open first, the remittance data and licence file in the middle, and the pharmacist roster, contracted rates and referral sources last, after a bid you believe; put an NDA gate in front of anything that opens, Simple NDA on the Business plan and a signed NDA on Data Room; turn on per-viewer dynamic watermarks on the Data Room plan so a leaked rate sheet traces to the person who opened it; and read page-level analytics to see which bidder actually spent an hour on the 2024 remittance file. Password-protected links, link expiry and analytics come with the Free tier; view-only access, screenshot protection and one-click revocation start on Business at $30 per admin per month billed annually; the Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually with unlimited free viewers; Deal Team at $64 adds redaction for schedules that still carry patient identifiers. Peony serves 6,800+ teams on this layer and is rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra; the room is a document-handling control, not a regulatory-compliance opinion, which comes from counsel.

Sources

• 21 CFR 1301.12, 1301.51 and 1301.52 (DEA registration; per-location registration; modification; termination, transfer and distribution upon discontinuance), eCFR, title 21 as of September 14, 2026. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/section-1301.52; https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/section-1301.12; https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/section-1301.51
• 21 CFR Part 207, §§ 207.17, 207.21 and 207.29 (FDA establishment registration and drug listing), eCFR. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/part-207
• 87 FR 27704, CMS contract year 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part D final rule (May 9, 2022); 42 CFR 423.100 "negotiated price," applicable January 1, 2024. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/05/09/2022-09375/
• 42 U.S.C. 256b (340B drug pricing program); HRSA, Notice Regarding 340B Drug Pricing Program-Contract Pharmacy Services, 75 FR 10272 (March 5, 2010). https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title42-section256b&num=0&edition=prelim; https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/03/05/2010-4755/
• National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, S. 1071, Public Law 119-60 (December 18, 2025), section 851, enrolled text. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s1071enr/html/BILLS-119s1071enr.htm
• USP General Chapter 797 and 800 update pages. https://www.usp.org/compounding/general-chapter-797; https://www.usp.org/compounding/general-chapter-hazardous-drugs-handling-healthcare
• California Business and Professions Code § 4201. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=4201.&lawCode=BPC
• Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., DEFM14A (June 6, 2025) and 8-K (August 28, 2025). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1618921/000119312525137049/d942554ddefm14a.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1618921/000119312525190603/d87240d8k.htm
• Guardian Pharmacy Services, Inc., prospectuses (424B4) dated September 25, 2024 and May 22, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1802255/000119312524227041/d856029d424b4.htm; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1802255/000119312525125837/d942275d424b4.htm
• Warburg Pincus, release of July 13, 2026 on PANTHERx Rare. https://warburgpincus.com/2026/07/13/warburg-pincus-led-investor-group-agrees-to-acquire-controlling-interest-in-pantherx-rare/
• PR Newswire releases: Peak Rock Capital / Asembia (July 2, 2026); Clariness / SubjectWell (January 27, 2026); Provident / CPS Infusion (September 9, 2025); Provident / Acentus (January 16, 2025); The Braff Group / IV Solutions (August 14, 2025); The Braff Group / Community Clinical Research (September 15, 2026). URLs in the ledger above.
• Bourne Partners news pages (CAI, SteriMax/Andone, Iterative Health/NextStage, QuartzBio, PAI Pharma/Nivagen) and research pages, read September 16, 2026. https://www.bourne-partners.com/
• PwC, Pharmaceutical and life sciences: US Deals 2026 midyear outlook. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/library/pharma-life-sciences-deals-outlook.html
• Drug Channels Institute, The 340B Contract Pharmacy Market in 2025 (June 10, 2025); The Top 15 Specialty Pharmacies of 2024 (June 18, 2025). https://www.drugchannels.net/2025/06/340b-contract-pharmacy-market-in-2025.html; https://www.drugchannels.net/2025/06/the-top-15-specialty-pharmacies-of-2024.html
• Mintz, Congress Passes Landmark PBM Reform in 2026 Spending Bill (February 6, 2026). https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/2146/2026-02-06-congress-passes-landmark-pbm-reform-2026-spending-bill
• Firm sites read September 16, 2026: bourne-partners.com, providenthp.com, thebraffgroup.com, fairmountpartners.com; SEC adviser-info firm database for broker-dealer file numbers.

About the author: Sean Yu is the co-founder of Peony, the data room platform used by 6,800+ customers across M&A, fundraising, and diligence workflows, including pharmacy and pharma-services owners and their advisers running confidential sales. Before Peony, Sean worked in M&A at Nomura, early-stage VC at Backed VC and growth equity at Target Global. Peony is not an M&A advisor; it is the confidential room a deal process runs in. Contact: sean@peony.ink • LinkedIn.