Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in biopharma and life sciences picked up sharply in 2025. An IQVIA report highlighted that “Aggregate M&A deal value in 2025 more than doubled, jumping by +133% vs. 2024, to reach $133Bn for the full year, the second highest level for the past 5 years.” In the broader life sciences sector, deal value also increased significantly. With M&A activity increasing so sharply, it is important for companies to get their scientific content portfolio in order before a transaction.
On top of this, as AI tools become part of everyday research workflows, copyright compliance is not just about document sharing anymore. Companies need policies, and staff need clear, easily understandable guidance on what can be used in AI systems and what usage types with AI tools are covered.
For 2026, here’s what companies should keep in mind when navigating a merger or acquisition:
- Audit publisher subscriptions before the deal
Accurately keeping track of publisher subscriptions is still a critical step in any merger or acquisition, since it gives companies the visibility they need to plan access, manage costs, and avoid disruption after a deal closes.
As an example, during an acquisition, a company with access to more resources may need to make decisions about which subscriptions to expand to cover new employees and then to negotiate those extensions to their subscriptions with publishers. Knowing ahead of time where employees are getting content from and how much you’re spending on this content can streamline the negotiation process. The time and effort needed to bring together this content usage information can be reduced with a budgeting tool such as RightFind Business Intelligence, which not only provides content usage insights but also helps model different budgeting scenarios so you can make data-driven decisions.
- Keep content access uninterrupted during a merger
In another common scenario, merging companies may both have subscriptions with the same providers for different content sets. Since many content providers control access via IP address, merging companies must work with publishers to ensure employees with changing IP addresses still have access to all necessary content.
Those managing access to content need to work closely with their IT teams, as IT infrastructure is crucial when navigating the content access demands created by M&A deals.
To simplify work between those managing access to content and IT teams during an M&A transaction, companies using RightFind Suite can use RightFind Passport to keep users ‘tied’ to recognized, static IP addresses, allowing them to be recognized as authorized employees regardless of their PC’s IP address.
- Track purchased scientific literature and who keeps access
Knowing the location of scientific literature your company has already purchased is crucial when granting access to new employees or removing access for a group. After a merger or acquisition, if an organization’s content needs to be broadly available to all employees, is it stored in a system that can manage this level of access?
For smaller companies, using systems that keep all the content purchased by employees accessible in one place can help acquisitions go smoothly. With content centrally located, companies can quickly assess which content is available, who has access to it, and what can be shared with new colleagues.
- Avoid seat-based licensing contracts
As an M&A transaction approaches, organizations using literature management solutions with seat-based access models will need to manage who already has seats, who needs seats, which seats can be reassigned and how many more seats to buy. This can be an expensive and time-consuming process, especially for smaller companies with limited resources. Choosing a vendor that can offer affordable, scalable, enterprise-wide licensing helps content managers avoid this potential headache.
- Plan onboarding for new teams and AI workflows
Companies entering an M&A deal should pay close attention to onboarding; this is when new teams will need to get up to speed quickly on both systems and expectations. By choosing widely used, industry-standard software, companies can improve the chances that new employees will already be familiar with how they access and manage scientific content, decreasing onboarding time overall.
In 2026, onboarding must also account for how the company handles AI-assisted research workflows, including what content can be used in AI tools, for what purposes, and what terms apply to those uses.
Even new employees who aren’t yet up to speed with a platform or compliance rules can be productive and do the right thing when information on what’s allowed is easily accessible and understandable in a single place. And vendors who can help with training and best practices for finding, using, and managing scientific content responsibly, including copyright compliance, will help make any transition smoother.
- Close copyright compliance gaps before due diligence
Copyright compliance has always been and remains an important issue during a merger or acquisition. Due diligence may expose gaps or risks relating to how content is accessed, shared, and used. It could also uncover that employees don’t have clear information or guidance on what content can be used in AI systems and so are doing things that could cause issues in the future.
For years, common M&A challenges included researchers still using their own academic credentials to access content for the workplace or sharing materials they are not licensed to share. This risk can be even greater in smaller companies and, without clear policies and guard rails in place, AI tools may end up being used, and employees may not always realize that copyright-protected materials cannot simply be uploaded into AI systems without the appropriate permissions. To reduce risk and avoid delays, organizations can adopt a copyright policy that is shared with all employees, supported by a copyright license from CCC and literature and rights management software like RightFind, which helps provide a central place to access critical scientific articles while making it easy for users to see information on how those articles can be used and shared, thereby making compliance easier to manage.
Smaller life science companies can follow these six steps to put a copyright policy in place.
- Build an efficient literature management process
The ability to easily find, acquire, and manage scientific content is as important as the content itself. By establishing an efficient process around its use of scientific literature, an organization, especially a smaller one, can send good signals to a partner in an M&A deal and help make the merger or acquisition that much easier to complete. For guidance on investing in a literature management system, check out our tips on the most important things to consider during your search.
Whether you are looking to refine your workflow around scientific literature or design one from scratch, companies entering an M&A deal need to think carefully about copyright, access, and the growing role of AI in research workflows. You do not have to manage that complexity alone. A vendor with a proven track record can help support these transactions and provide the structure needed to keep scientific content and AI use aligned with company policy.
At CCC, we’ve worked with hundreds of life science and pharmaceutical clients undergoing their own mergers and acquisitions. For smaller and emerging companies, the RightFind Suite Growth Bundle brings literature management, search, and copyright compliance together in one place, so scientific content stays organized and compliant through a transaction. Contact us to learn more.