Healthcare
By , 27 Feb 15
Perhaps the most significant of the current trends in healthcare is the wave of new product innovation, particularly in therapeutics.
Whilst merger and acquisition (M&A) activity has increased across the board in recent years, the healthcare sector is leading the general market with an aggressive increase in M&A volumes. Global healthcare M&A in 2014 was $376bn, up 92% from 2013.
Healthcare M&A is likely to continue as pharma and biotech companies are cash rich and are using M&A as a means to acquire innovation in order to grow their drug pipelines. This is not too dissimilar from general technology companies. Many large groups have decided that the acquisition of smaller biotech and medical devices companies with promising products represents a better return on capital than investing internally in research and development.