The healthcare industry saw 1,250 deals announced or completed through October of this year, according to Bloomberg Law.
The healthcare deal volume in 2019 is significantly higher than the same period last year, which had 900 deals announced or closed.
Merger and acquisition activity for long-term care, physician services, health IT and pharmaceutical companies are on pace to exceed the deal volume hit in 2018.
Walgreens is one company that is driving deal activity in the healthcare sector. The retail pharmacy giant recently announced it would close 157 in-store healthcare clinics it operated by the end of the year.
TriHealth announced it would buy seven of the Walgreens clinics in the Cincinnati area, and the deal is likely to be replicated elsewhere, Gary Herschman, a member of law firm Epstein Becker Green, told Bloomberg Law.
However, the hospital and health system sector will likely end 2019 with fewer deals than in 2018, according to the report.
There were only 12 transactions in the hospital and health system sector in October, according to Nicholas Davis, a senior analyst at healthcare consultancy ECG Management Partners.
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