Diagnostic Deals: A Roundup of the Key Mergers, Acquisitions, Alliances, Licenses and Other Strategic Transactions From the Past Month

Forget the lazy days of summer–lab companies have been moving forward with deals. Here’s a look at key activity from mid-July through the third week of August.

M&A
Roche acquired an additional 12.5 million shares of Foundation Medicine at $137 per share, valued at $1.72 billion, moving the company closer to its total purchase price of $2.4 billion. When the deal closes, Foundation Medicine will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Roche.
Another notable deal was the closing of Myriad Genetics’ acquisition of Counsyl. In addition to the M&A deals listed in the chart, there were three new strategic product and technology asset acquisitions worth noting:

• Svar Life Science, formerly Euro Diagnostica, agreed to transfer its radioimmunoassay portfolio and Neolisa chromogranin A ELISA assay to Diasource ImmunoAssays;
• Waters acquired the exclusive rights to Prosolia’s desorption electrospray ionization technology for mass spectrometry applications; and
• Interspace Diagnostics acquired most of the equipment from the Philadelphia laboratory of Rosetta Genomics, which filed for bankruptcy in June.

Strategic Alliances
Exact Sciences and Pfizer agreed to copromote Exact’s Cologuard colorectal cancer screening test Cologuard. Wall Street liked the news as shares of Exact soared on the announcement.

Meanwhile, 23andMe made a four-year deal making GlaxoSmithKline its sole drug discovery collaborator.

The period was also notable for new alliance activity in Asia, including:

• Oxford BioDynamics’ strategic alliance with GL Capital Group to help it establish a footprint in China;
• Genetic Technologies’ partnering with Zishan Health Consultancy to facilitate expansion into the Chinese market;
• Clearbridge Health Limited’s exclusive partnership with Hunan, China-based Agen Medicine Laboratory Technology Company.
• Qiagen’s non-exclusively collaboration with SRL, the largest clinical testing lab in Japan.

Here’s a summary of key diagnostic deals from mid-July through the third week in August: