Opening bell, March 31, 2026: S&P 500 opens at 6,403 as CNTA surges 45% on Lilly’s $7.8B deal

NEW YORK, March 31, 2026 — The S&P 500 opened Q1’s final session at 6,403.37, advancing alongside a Nasdaq Composite that climbed 1.80% to 21,168.20, as three blockbuster M&A announcements and a Wall Street Journal report indicating President Trump is prepared to wind down the Iran war — even without full Strait of Hormuz reopening — combined to produce the quarter’s strongest opening session. Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Centessa Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: CNTA) for $38 per share in cash upfront — implying an equity value of approximately $6.3 billion — plus a contingent value right worth up to $9 per share tied to three FDA approval milestones, bringing total potential consideration to $47 per share and total deal value to $7.8 billion. CNTA surged 45% at the open on the deal. Separately, McCormick & Company (NYSE: MKC) and Unilever announced a $44.8 billion combination of McCormick with Unilever’s global foods business — creating a consumer staples giant with projected annual revenues exceeding $20 billion. And in healthcare, Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB) announced its $5.6 billion acquisition of Apellis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: APLS), sending APLS up 136% in the session.

Lilly acquires Centessa for up to $7.8B — the orexin gold rush claims its biggest deal

Eli Lilly’s acquisition of Centessa is the latest — and largest — deal in what analysts are calling the “orexin gold rush”: a wave of pharmaceutical consolidation around a new class of drugs called orexin receptor 2 (OX2R) agonists that target the brain’s master sleep-wake switch. At the centre of the transaction is cleminorexton (formerly ORX750), Centessa’s lead investigational asset, which has demonstrated what Lilly described as a “potential best-in-class profile” in Phase 2a clinical studies across three indications: narcolepsy type 1, narcolepsy type 2, and idiopathic hypersomnia. The CVR structure — three milestone payments tied to cleminorexton and ORX142 receiving FDA approval for narcolepsy type 2 and idiopathic hypersomnia by the fifth anniversary of closing — means that Lilly’s total outlay scales directly with the drug’s commercial success, a design that aligns incentives between acquirer and target shareholders.

The deal represents a 38% premium to Centessa’s Monday closing price of $27.58, and a 40.5% premium to the 30-day volume-weighted average price. Lilly shares rose approximately 2.75–3% on the announcement — an unusual reaction for an acquirer, typically reflecting market confidence in the strategic and financial rationale. Lilly’s president of neuroscience, Dr. Carole Ho, said in the announcement that “orexin receptor biology represents one of the most compelling mechanistic opportunities in neuroscience as a direct intervention on the master switch of the sleep-wake cycle.” Oppenheimer analyst Kostas Biliouris estimates the orexin agonist addressable market at $15 billion to $20 billion if even approximately one quarter of narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia patients seek treatment. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2026, subject to regulatory approval. Key institutional investors — including entities affiliated with Medicxi Ventures, Index Ventures, and General Atlantic — holding approximately 24.1% of Centessa’s shares have signed voting and support agreements in favour of the deal.

McCormick and Unilever’s $44.8B mega-merger — Hellmann’s, Knorr, and a new consumer staples giant

The second major deal of the session was also in consumer staples: McCormick & Company and Unilever announced a definitive agreement to combine McCormick with Unilever’s global foods business — excluding operations in India — in a transaction valued at approximately $44.8 billion. The structure is a tax-efficient Reverse Morris Trust: McCormick will pay Unilever $15.7 billion in cash and issue the equivalent of $29.1 billion in shares, leaving Unilever and its shareholders with approximately 65% of the combined company’s equity, while McCormick shareholders retain approximately 35%. The combined entity will maintain McCormick’s name, Maryland headquarters, and NYSE listing, and will be led by McCormick CEO Brendan Foley and CFO Marcos Gabriel, with Unilever appointing four of the twelve combined board directors at closing.

The strategic logic is clear on both sides. For Unilever — which previously spun off its ice cream business as Magnum Ice Cream Co. in December 2025 — the transaction accelerates its pivot toward high-growth personal care and beauty, shedding a foods segment that generated €2.8 billion in underlying EBITDA in 2025 but grew sales at only 2.5%. For McCormick, the deal transforms it from a ~$15 billion spice company into a dominant global condiments and flavour platform with projected annual revenues exceeding $20 billion. Unilever’s foods portfolio brings household names including Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Knorr seasonings and soups, French’s mustard — brands that complement McCormick’s existing ownership of Frank’s RedHot, Cholula, and French’s mustard. The deal is expected to close in mid-2027, pending regulatory and shareholder approval, and the companies project approximately $300 million in annual cost savings from combining operations. McCormick is projecting sustainable organic sales growth of 3–5% post-combination, up from its current 1–3% standalone guidance. Despite the strategic merit, MKC shares fell approximately 6% in morning trading as investors weighed execution risk and the dilutive impact of Unilever owning 65% of the enlarged company.

The broader session — Iran WSJ signal, Biogen-Apellis, and Q1’s closing tone

The three M&A deals were amplified by the macro backdrop: a Wall Street Journal report published late Monday evening indicating that Trump told aides he was willing to end U.S. military operations against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remained partially closed lifted futures sharply overnight and carried into Tuesday’s open. S&P 500 futures had entered the session at 6,436.75, up 0.76% — the result of the WSJ’s ceasefire signal being read as the most significant potential diplomatic development since the conflict began on February 28. Oil traded in choppy conditions, with WTI at approximately $102.3 (–0.5%) and Brent at $112.9 (+0.16%), reflecting the mixed signals from Monday’s Kharg Island obliteration threat and Monday evening’s more conciliatory WSJ report. The Iran war’s fifth week opened with this tension between the two postures — escalatory public statements and private diplomatic flexibility — remaining unresolved ahead of the April 6 deadline.

The Biogen-Apellis deal — $41 per share in cash, representing a 140% premium to APLS’s Monday close of $17.09 and total upfront equity consideration of approximately $5.6 billion, plus CVRs of up to $4 per share tied to SYFOVRE sales milestones — sent APLS surging 136% in premarket, with session volume exceeding 33 million shares against an average daily volume of 2.78 million. Biogen gains two commercial assets: SYFOVRE (geographic atrophy, the first approved treatment for one of the leading causes of blindness globally) and EMPAVELI (rare kidney diseases C3G and IC-MPGN, plus paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria), which generated combined revenue of approximately $689 million in 2025 and are expected to grow in the mid-to-high teens at least through 2028. The deal is structured as a tender offer followed by a Section 251(h) Delaware merger, with no financing condition, and is expected to be increasingly accretive to non-GAAP EPS starting in 2027. See the dedicated APLS analysis on PreMarket Daily for the full deal breakdown.

Q1 final bell — closing the worst quarter in three years with the M&A market still open

Q1 2026 will close tonight as the S&P 500’s worst quarter in more than three years, defined by the Iran war’s oil shock that sent Brent up more than 50% in March alone — its steepest monthly gain since Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait — confirming corrections in both the Dow and Nasdaq, collapsing consumer sentiment to the bottom 1st percentile of historical readings, and reversing rate cut expectations to rate hike probabilities above 50%. That macro deterioration is the backdrop against which today’s three M&A deals landed — and their combined messaging is notable: Eli Lilly, Biogen, and McCormick are all making transformative capital allocation decisions into a market that is deeply uncertain about the conflict’s duration and the economic outlook for the quarters ahead. That is either a contrarian signal of corporate confidence, or a reflection of balance sheets so strong and strategic pipelines so urgent that dealmakers cannot afford to wait for macro clarity. Both interpretations are present in Tuesday’s opening session — the market’s +1.80% Nasdaq gain reflects the former; the MKC –6% decline reflects the latter. Context on how M&A and earnings events translate into market action is available through PreMarket Daily’s education series.