Graham Parry & team, BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research

Rising from runner-up to third place is the BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research group of four led by London-based Graham Parry. “Graham and his team are often ahead of the pack regarding larger trends in the pharmaceuticals sector — such as emerging markets as a new source of growth — as well as standard top-down themes, such as vaccines and generics,” explains one investor. The researchers cover 20 companies, up from 18 a year ago, and remain generally positive in their outlook; “however, we believe some caution relative to our prior extremely bullish stance is warranted given strong sector outperformance, current overweight consensus positioning and improving macro sentiment,” Parry says. Top picks include Germany’s Bayer, U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline and Switzerland’s Roche Holding.