PwC is deepening its bet on healthcare dealmaking in Germany, bringing on two senior bankers to build out the corporate finance and mergers advisory practice it runs for the sector. Jens Gerlach and Julian Knirim have both joined the firm as partners, based in Frankfurt, where they will guide clients through takeovers and sales at home and across the rest of Europe.
The two arrive with matching pedigrees. Each brings more than 15 years in healthcare investment banking and, between them, a track record of advising on over 100 international transactions spanning the German speaking DACH region and markets beyond it. That kind of deal count is the currency of the advisory business, where relationships and repetition tend to win the next mandate.
From Lincoln International to the Big Four
Gerlach and Knirim join from Lincoln International, where they worked on the European healthcare team, and their careers have run in parallel for years. Both moved to Lincoln in 2020 from Raymond James, another investment bank, and now they make the jump together again, this time from a specialist advisory shop to one of the largest professional services firms in the world.
For PwC, the appeal of hiring a proven pair is straightforward. Rather than assembling a team piece by piece, the firm imports an established partnership with a shared client base and a common way of working, a shortcut to credibility in a field where clients want bankers who already understand the science and the balance sheets.
Chasing a busy corner of the deal market
The mandate for the new partners covers the busiest niches of healthcare finance, namely healthcare services, medical technology, health focused software, and the broad world of pharmaceuticals and life sciences. These are areas where investors have stayed active even when wider dealmaking has cooled, drawn by aging populations, steady demand, and a wave of innovation in diagnostics and treatment.
By planting the practice firmly in Frankfurt, Germany's financial capital, PwC positions itself at the center of European healthcare M&A, ready to work both domestic deals and the cross border transactions that increasingly define the sector. The hires are a modest headline on their own, but they signal where the firm sees growth, in a corner of the market that keeps trading regardless of the economic weather.
