Gilead buy Ver­tex? A gold­en oldie in the M&A buzz cir­cuit gets fresh air time

This was the year M&A was sup­posed to make a big splash in bio­phar­ma. But we’ve seen on­ly a few rip­ples on this pond, and we’re at the halfway mark for the year now.

What bet­ter time for Ge­of­frey Porges, now at Leerink, to re­vive an old sug­ges­tion that Gilead $GILD buy Ver­tex $VRTX?

Gilead, as we know, has been told by many an­a­lysts that it needs to do some­thing big in M&A more times than prac­ti­cal­ly any oth­er deal-hun­gry com­pa­ny in the in­dus­try, in­clud­ing Sanofi $SNY and Bio­gen $BI­IB. It has the mon­ey. They’re watch­ing the hep C cash cow start to dry up and CEO John Mil­li­gan could pull it off quick, land­ing a mar­ket-lead­ing cys­tic fi­bro­sis port­fo­lio with a fo­cused pipeline.

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