Will they? Won't they?

Abstract

Sir William Osler, Canadian physician and a founding professor of Johns Hopkins Hospital, stated "Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability". The same can easily be said of the pharmaceutical industry, as those of our colleagues involved in the research and development of new pharmacological molecules and new medicinal products will attest. Lately, however, this element of uncertainty has been compounded beyond all expectations. Only as recently as my last message to you, talk was rife of an exceptional year of merger and acquisition activity in the sector.