Doug Braunstein, head of Americas investment banking for JPMorgan Chase, said in delivering his welcoming remarks at the 24th annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last month that he couldn’t remember a year that had as much “transformational activity” for healthcare and healthcare investors as witnessed in 2005.

It was, he said, “another robust year” for merger-and-acquisition activity in the sector, totaling $150 billion in transaction volume across all of healthcare.

— Jim Stommen, Executive Editor