Roche to buy US cancer-drug maker Ignyta

GENEVA: Roche Holding AG has agreed to acquire US biotech Ignyta Inc for US$1.7bil, following Bayer AG in buying into a class of experimental cancer drugs that home in on a specific mutation across many types of tumors.

Ignyta investors would get US$27 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement yesterday. That’s 74% higher than Thursday’s closing price.

Both companies’ boards agreed to the deal.

Roche’s purchase comes about five weeks after Bayer signed a US$1.55bil licensing deal for Loxo Oncology Inc’s larotrectinib, an experimental medicine similar to Ignyta’s entrectinib.

Roche has said it would focus on small deals like Ignyta to build out its portfolio.

The Swiss company, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, is facing a critical transition as its three top-selling medicines lose patent protection.

San Diego-based Ignyta’s entrectinib is being tested in patient trials that, if successful, could be the basis for applications with regulators to sell the drug. Roche said it aimed to complete the purchase in the first half of 2018.

Citigroup Inc advised Roche on the deal, while Sidley Austin LLP provided legal advice. Ignyta used bankers from BofA Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Securities LLC with Latham & Watkins LLP as legal counsel.

Roche shares fell 0.1% to 246.50 Swiss francs at 9:10am in Zurich yesterday, valuing the company at 213 billion francs (US$215bil).

Ignyta was founded in 2011 by University of California, San Diego researcher Gary Firestein and Jonathan Lim, the former chief executive officer of Halozyme Therapeutics Inc.