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Here is the latest on the Biotech sector:

The latest megadeal is the announcement of Roche (OTC: RHHBY) to buy Genentech (NYSE: DNA) at $95 per share on March 12, 2009. Also on March 12, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) announced it will buy CV Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CVTX) for $1.4 billion, exceeding Astellas' proposed offering price of $1 billion.

We believe current market environment in the Pharma/biotech industry is favorable for the M&A activity. Big pharma and biotech companies still face three major challenges: patent expiration, low research and development productivity, and generic competition.

While we continue to expect increased M&A activity in the rest of 2009, we also will see licensing deals between big pharma/biotech companies and small biotech firms.

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