Biotech on Brink of M&A Eruption Now Just Needs a Detonator

Biotech investors might need a detonation event to deliver a wave of highly anticipated mergers and acquisitions in the wake of U.S. tax reform and consolidation in the health-care supply chain.

After surging to a three-year high in late January, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology exchange-traded fund has been unable to break out of a first-quarter funk. The increasingly aggressive pace of deals by health-care payers may be the spark that biopharma needs to start its own feeding frenzy, Goldman Sachs analyst Jami Rubin said March 16. Many drug companies are already looking at slower growth prospects, and larger and more ...