I hate arrogant titles like this one, but I have been shouting about the coming implosion of Big Pharma for several years. Well, it's here. Consider these three factoids from, again, Forbes: In the last 3 years big pharma have laid off 70,000 folks. Pfizer, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Schering Plough have lost $394 billion in market cap in the last 5 years. And, as biotech adds muscle, Amgen and Genentech are on a trajectory to pass Merck in sales by about 2009.
(More on "told you so." As the industry began to stagger, the defense mounted by most of the "premier" players was ... you guessed it ... major mergers.)