Epstein Becker Green Research: Regulation, Budgets Likely to Drive Life Sciences and Healthcare Consolidation

New York (February 23, 2012) — Corporate executives and investors in the life sciences and healthcare sector are preparing for a busy year in M&A, according to the newly released Life Sciences & Healthcare Sector Forecast survey conducted by mergermarket in association with Epstein Becker & Green P.C. (Epstein Becker Green) and IntraLinks.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, Epstein Becker Green and IntraLinks commissioned mergermarket to interview more than 75 corporate executives and investors in the life sciences and healthcare industries to gain insights on key issues affecting the sector over the next 12 months.

Overall expectations for M&A activity within the sector are high, including all subsectors—biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare providers and payers, and healthcare services. Financial buyers will focus on the healthcare services and healthcare providers and payer subsectors, while strategic buyers are likely to dominate biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

According to the survey, many M&A deals are expected to be part of an industry-wide consolidation driven by regulatory changes and congressional budgeting. Respondents say patent litigation and expiration and potential regulatory changes to intellectual property will be a primary driver of deals in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical device manufacturers. The healthcare services and providers subsectors will similarly be effected by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the automatic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid if Congress fails to reconcile on last year's failed budget agreement.

Additional survey results:

• Acquisitions lead activity: More than 40 percent of respondents predict the acquisition will be the most common deal type in each subsector over the next 12 months
• Interest in therapeutics unchanged: The majority of respondents still find oncology as the area that investors will show the most interest in, a repeat of the first edition of this study
• Due diligence targeting IP: Respondents say intellectual property is the risk they are most concerned with to be identified or overlooked during due diligence

The full survey is available at: www.mergermarket.com/pdf/Life_Sciences_Healthcare_2012.pdf

About Epstein Becker Green

Epstein Becker Green is a national law firm focused on health care and life sciences; employment, labor, and workforce management; and litigation and business disputes. Our attorneys advise clients at every stage of their business lifecycle, delivering practical, results-driven counsel that shapes strategy, accelerates growth, and safeguards what matters most. We serve organizations of every size, from emerging startups to Fortune 100 companies, across the health care, life sciences, financial services, retail, hospitality, and technology industries, with sound legal solutions they can depend on when it counts. www.ebglaw.com

About mergermarket

mergermarket is an independent Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) intelligence service, with the largest network of dedicated M&A journalists on the ground in 65 locations across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This team focuses on gathering actionable proprietary intelligence, creating the only origination database of live targets and bidders. mergermarket is also an unrivalled source of deal history. Public and private deals across a range of sectors can be searched using an exhaustive database. This proprietary intelligence and historical deals database is available to over 145,000 individual subscribers from more than 1,600 of the world's principal advisory firms, investment banks, law firms, private equity firms and corporates. mergermarket is part of The Mergermarket Group, which has over 600 employees worldwide and regional head offices in London, New York and Hong Kong.

About IntraLinks

IntraLinks is a leading global provider of Software-as-a-Service solutions for securely managing content, exchanging critical business information and collaborating within and among organizations. More than 1 million professionals in industries including financial services, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer, energy, industrial, legal, insurance, real estate and technology, as well as government agencies, have utilized IntraLinks' easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions. IntraLinks users can accelerate information-intensive business processes and workflows, meet regulatory and risk management requirements and collaborate with customers, partners and counterparties in a secure, auditable and compliant manner. Professionals at more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies have used IntraLinks' solutions. For more information, visit www.intralinks.com or http://blog.intralinks.com. You can also follow IntraLinks on Twitter at http://twitter.com/intralinks and Facebook at www.facebook.com/IntraLinks.