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

As the year winds down, diagnostic deals aren’t as plentiful. Nevertheless, there have been some significant transactions. Here’s a recap of the key activity from mid-October through the third week of November.

M&A and Asset Sales
The biggest deal in recent weeks also happens to be one of the year’s biggest. Illumina will acquire Pacific Biosciences for approximately $1.2 billion in cash. Under the agreement, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, Illumina will pay $8.00 per PacBio share. This represents a 71% premium over PacBio’s 30 trading-day volume weighted average share price as of the market close on Oct. 31.

Illumina is willing to pay a premium to gain access to PacBio’s long-read sequencing technology and potential clinical applications, as it will extend Illumina’s reach into areas such as de novo assembly of plant and animal genomes, functional genomics, tissue transplantation, and pharmacogenomics. The long-read sequencing market, estimated at $600 million in 2017, is expected to increase to $2.5 billion by 2022.

In other news, Quest Diagnostics will acquire Marin General Hospital’s outreach lab services operations for an undisclosed amount. Quest has also closed on the previously reported acquisition of Oxford Immunotec Global. This makes it a busy fall for Quest; last month, the company was involved in five other deals.

Strategic Alliances
Speaking of busy, among the alliances announced this past month is one involving Illumina. The company will partner with Blue Cross Blue Shield Association to further the understanding of precision medicine in the United States. The plan is to create a report on availability and clinical understanding of DNA sequencing technologies, genetic testing, and precision medicine that will prove—pardon the pun—Illumina-ting.

In other news, Google is on this month’s radar. IntegraGen has entered into a partnership with Google Cloud. The company aims to promote use of personalized medical care by facilitating genomics research projects and analysis of sequencing data by integrating its Sirius and Mercury genomic analysis tools into Google Cloud Platform.

These and other alliances, including a noteworthy partnership between 23andMe and MyoKardia, are detailed in the chart below.

Here’s a summary of key diagnostic deals from late October through the third week in November: