Talk is cheap

M&A is the talk of the sector, but finding anything worth buying is easier said than done. Biogen (BGEN), whose stock has run up nicely over past 12 months, has an ongoing program to in-license or acquire a product, but hasn't found what it's looking for.

"A lot of people have asked 'now that your stock is at $65, are you going to do some deals?'" said President and CEO James Tobin in the company's third quarter conference call. High on his list of criteria is a product with high margins - in the 75-85 percent range. A high-margin product would enable the company to fund R&D through cash flow, and reduce any drag on earnings. "If you accept a lower margin product, what ends up suffering in the end is dollars available to research," he said. "We continue to look very hard for deals, but we're not going to compromise ourselves. We haven't found anything, but we haven't stopped trying."...