Long-awaited M&A boom will hit biopharma in 2019 despite persistent worries, prognosticators predict

When Congress passed a business-friendly tax package last year, pharma prognosticators predicted 2018 would be the year that mergers and acquisitions in the sector would finally gain steam. They were wrong. Despite the industry’s newfound ability to repatriate cash at a 15.5% tax rate versus the 35% rate they had to pay before, biopharma companies did not make 2018 the year of M&A.