ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG (S:ROG) has agreed to pay $137 per share to buy the rest of Foundation Medicine (FMI) (O:FMI), a $2.4 billion (1.81 billion pounds) transaction that values the U.S. genomic profiling group at $5.3 billion, the partners said on Tuesday.
The deal, backed by the boards of both companies, is set to close in the second half of this year, they said in a statement.
The offer price represented a premium of 29 percent to FMI's closing price on Monday. FMI closed at $106.45, up 4.4 percent.
Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, FMI is a molecular information company specialised in cancer care. It offers comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) assays to identify molecular alterations in a patient's cancer and match them with targeted therapies, immunotherapies and clinical trials.
"This is important to our personalised healthcare strategy as we believe molecular insights and the broad availability of high quality comprehensive genomic profiling are key enablers for the development of, and access to, new cancer treatments," Roche pharmaceuiticals head Daniel O'Day said.
"We will preserve FMI's autonomy while supporting them in accelerating their progress."
Citi (N:C) is acting as financial advisers to Roche and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is legal counsel to Roche. Goldman Sachs & Co (N:GS) is financial adviser to the FMI Special Committee and Goodwin Procter LLP is legal counsel.