Roche pays $187M for Arius to get Ab tech
Announcing its third acquisition in as many days (see also page 3 and 7), Swiss drug major Roche says it will buy Canadian biotechnology firm ARIUS in an all-cash transaction valuing the latter at C$191.9 million ($186.9 million), or C$2.44 per share. This is a premium of 15% on the firm's closing price on July 22 and 44% over its 20-day average to May 15, when ARIUS revealed that third parties had expressed interest in the company.
The attraction is ARIUS' antibody platform, FunctionFIRST, which rapidly identifies and selects antibodies based on their functional ability to affect disease before progressing into clinical development, which will help Roche strengthen its R&D portfolio, initially in oncology and inflammatory diseases.
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