Dive Brief:
- Data from Thompson Reuters reveals that healthcare M&A so far this year, at $395.8 billion, has already topped the 2014 full-year record of $392.4 billion.
- The tipping point was St. Jude Medical's $3-billion acquisition of Thoratec, a manufacturer of devices for heart failure.
- Healthcare deals are up 78% from last year, lead by pharmaceutical companies (49%), followed by healthcare providers (32%) and biotech companies (10%).
Dive Insight:
There were 95 hospital deals in 2014, according to a Kaufman Hall analysis, and 46 so far this year, according to a report by Irving Levin Associates. Just in July, Barnabas Health and Robert Wood Johnson Health System merged into New Jersey's largest hospital network with 11 hospitals, 30,000 employees and 9,000 physicians.
We're burying the lede, of course: Perhaps the most significant industry merger was announced on July 3—Aetna paying $37 billion in cash and stocks for Humana.