They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Unfortunately, healthcare bankers are kept away by something much easier to come by: market uncertainty.
According to market intelligence provider BCG Expand, healthcare investment banking revenues in the first half of 2025 fell by 31% as a whole compared to the same period in 2024. Declines were broad: revenues were 36% down in both Debt and Equity Capital Markets, and 30% down in M&A.
BCG blames pressure from the US government’s drug pricing reforms (which is leading to smaller valuations, for example) as well as the sector being ripe for disruption by direct lenders which disrupt DCM business.
Some banks are cutting teams in response. Bloomberg reported last week that Canadian Scotiabank was cutting worldwide, with the US healthcare team subject to “major cuts”. HSBC, which inherited a significant number of healthcare bankers from SVP back in 2023, is thought to have cut as part of its broader retrenchment from investment banking.
Many banks, however, are not firing. Investors in Healthcare noted at the end of July that UBS had picked up three new MDs for its healthcare banking team, including Noël Brown to head up its biotechnology investment banking team, from RBC Capital Markets.
RBC itself picked up Darren Campili from Wells Fargo to head up its global healthcare banking team earlier this month. Wells Fargo, in turn, has already increased the size of its healthcare team by 30% since the start of the year, and expected to hire more people until the end of the year, according to the FT. Healthcare banking is apparently more of a carousel than anything else.
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