Mer­ck and No­var­tis chiefs out­line what's on the M&A menu in 2017

Every quar­ter Big Phar­ma CEOs al­most in­evitably get to an­swer at least one ques­tion from a promi­nent an­a­lyst about their next ac­qui­si­tion. This year, the ques­tions have be­come more point­ed as more of the Big 10 play­ers talk a good game, but rarely seem to de­liv­er—un­less their name is Pfiz­er.

Here’s the bot­tom line on what we found out on Tues­day: Bolt-ons are still all the rage in M&A.

Mer­ck, which has been a very cau­tious play­er since its Cu­bist buy­out, wants any­thing new on the deal ta­ble to be eas­i­ly clipped in­to the com­pa­ny’s cur­rent struc­ture. Sound fa­mil­iar?

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