BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Roche: Illumina acquisition 'off the table'

January 8, 2013 2:10 AM UTC

Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) fell $3.86 to $50.90 on Monday after Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY) said a deal to acquire the sequencing and microarray company is "off the table." The pharma declined to provide further details. In April 2012, Illumina's board rejected a bumped-up offer from Roche to acquire Illumina for $51 per share, or about $6.3 billion. On Dec. 20, Illumina jumped $4.02 to $56.19 on rumors that Roche made another bid to acquire the company for $66 per share, or about $8.1 billion. Illumina declined to comment (see BioCentury Extra, Dec 20, 2012).

Separately, Illumina said it will acquire prenatal testing company Verinata Health Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.) for $350 million, plus up to $100 million in milestones through 2015. Illumina will gain Verinata's verifi prenatal test, which is marketed in the U.S. to identify multiple fetal chromosomal abnormalities, including Down syndrome, from maternal blood. The product is a non-invasive prenatal test utilizing massively parallel DNA sequencing. ...