Roche snaps up rest of Foundation Medicine for $2.4bn

Roche is buying the shares it does not already own in US molecular information company Foundation Medicine (FMI), in a deal valued at $2.4 billion.

The Swiss drugs giant said it is paying 137.00 per outstanding share in cash, equating to a total company value of $5.3 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The price represents a premium of 29 percent to FMI’s closing price on 18 June and a premium of 47 percent and 68 percent to its 30-day and 90-day volume weighted average share price on that date, respectively.

The merger agreement has been unanimously approved by the board of Roche and a Special Committee of the independent directors of FMI. All current members of the FMI board have indicated that they intend to tender their FMI shares in the tender offer, Roche said.

"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," said Daniel O’Day, chief executive of Roche Pharmaceuticals.

"We will preserve FMI’s autonomy while supporting them in accelerating their progress."