Holger Blum, Richard Parkes & team, Deutsche Bank

The buy side says: “They have a thorough knowledge of the companies, the products and the pipelines.”

The six-strong Deutsche Bank squad co-­captained by Holger Blum, 39, and newcomer Richard Parkes, 38, races from ­runner-up to make its first appearance in the winner’s circle. Blum works out of Zurich (and also heads the No. 1 team in Switzerland and co-leads, with Yi-Dan Wang, the No. 2 team in Medical Technologies & Services); four of his teammates, including Parkes, are in London and one is in Frankfurt. The group covers 12 companies, up from eight last year. These are hard times, thanks to a challenging regulatory environment, high level of product failures and limited access to new capital, says Parkes. The analysts have been urging clients to invest in “companies that are well positioned to deliver on existing pipelines and to capitalize on the innovation gap at the major pharmaceutical companies,” he adds. Blum joined Deutsche in 1998 after earning MBAs at Germany’s University of Mannheim and Western Illinois University in the U.S. Parkes moved to the firm in 2010 from Piper Jaffray; he holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the ­Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and conducted postdoctoral research at University College London. “His scientific background and emphasis on digging into clinical data make his research interesting and impactful,” says one fan.