The Scientist has a good article that presents a 1000-foot picture of the increasing number of mergers between and acquisitions of biotechnology companies in the past couple years. In The Urge to Merge (free registration required to access the article), it sets out how many of the BigPharma companies have had to acquire smaller companies to help bolster their own dwindling pipelines.
The author points out that a lot of these mergers don't necessarily help the bottom line of the acquiring company or meet the projection of what the two merging companies should meet, due more to cultural differences. The larger, more hierarchical BigPharma Acquirer and the nimbler, more entrepreneurial Acquiree (stereotypically speaking) don't always see eye-to-eye, causing growing pains. In truly merging companies, you often have employees whose jobs suddenly are redundant and they are doing what they can to avoid being laid off, with their actions seldom being terrific for either company.
One minor group that was not touched on in the article are the small biotech companies that are absolutely looking to being acquired as an exit strategy from the get-go and not just for a cash infusion. It's difficult to quantify whether such acquisitions are "happier" because the acquired party had assumed from the beginning that it would be swallowed up and put into a teeny subsidiary situation. There is a good chance, though, that if the employees of that smaller company had always known that buyout was the goal (rather than a last effort to keep the research going), the result is likely fewer disgruntled and startled employees and "better" acquisition processes that works out better for the bottom line of the acquirer. Not to say that companies should keep telling employees "we're in this just for the short haul until we get acquired," but it may behoove companies that are genuinely looking at acquisition as an endpoint to make possibility clear to their employees.
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