Bio­phar­ma's top 10 over­seas cash hoards. And what kind of M&A spree would $171B buy?

Pfiz­er CEO Ian Read has a well earned rep for pay­ing top dol­lar when­ev­er he gets in a buy­out mood Get­ty

The Sen­ate bill on tax re­form in­cludes a long-sought Re­pub­li­can pro­vi­sion for a hon­ey­moon pe­ri­od aimed at cor­po­ra­tions want­i­ng to repa­tri­ate their over­seas cash at a much low­er rate. And bio­phar­ma’s top 10 has an es­ti­mat­ed $171 bil­lion moth­er lode of cash that could find a new home once the Sen­ate and House get to­geth­er.

The im­pli­ca­tions for the in­dus­try could be pro­found. Pfiz­er CEO Ian Read has side­lined his busi­ness de­vel­op­ment team in prep for what’s ahead. Bob Brad­way at Am­gen swims in cash that could eas­i­ly fund a huge M&A deal — or two. The cash avalanche could trig­ger an M&A fren­zy — un­less CEOs pre­fer to ear­mark most of it for share buy­backs to make their stock­hold­ers hap­py.

An­a­lysts main job these days is try­ing to guess who will buy what.

Is Ver­tex head­ed to a buy­out, with an ac­quir­er in­ter­est­ed in cap­i­tal­iz­ing on its cys­tic fi­bro­sis port­fo­lio?

How about Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb? Will it be a buy­er or will Pfiz­er snap it up?

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