If you’ve been feeling like drugmaker mergers and acquisitions have been busting out all over the place this year, professional-services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has the numbers to back you up. In its second-quarter report on the subject, released in late August, the company found that deal volume in the pharma and life-science industries rose 43.5% over Q2 2013, to a total of 33. The total value of these deals rose 19.8% to $14.5 billion.
TurboTax software maker Intuit has snapped up 11 small tech companies in the past 13 months. Most recently, Intuit (INTU) completed its purchase of bill-payment app provider Check for $360 million. Other recent acquisitions include Elastic Intelligence, Fifo, Level Up Analytics, Full Slate, Prestwick Services, Docstoc and Lettuce. The M&A focus is part of a big shift in corporate strategy that began last summer when Intuit sold two of its biggest
Zillow’s marketing department, led by Chief Marketing Officer Amy Bohutinsky, has doubled in size over the past year. Bohutinsky has been with Zillow (Z) since the company’s start nine years ago. She worked with Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff at Hotwire before Zillow’s founding. The company is staying mum on some details of its ad campaignso that rivals such as Trulia (TRLA) stay in the dark. But Bohutinsky spoke with IBD about the campaign and